Zack's Birthday Surprise
by celrock
Summary: It's Zack's first birthday, and a surprise party is being planned for him, but when Kimi spoils the surprise, can she find something special to make it up to him? Meanwhile, Zack attends Golden Apple Daycare for the very first time, and Dil has his first dentist appointment with Dr. Homer, much to Tommy's dismay.
1. Spoiling the Surprise

Author's Note: This story here was originally suppose to be released last year to pay dedication to my nephew turning 2-years-old on 10/10/15, but as you can see, it got pushed back another year because my hectic school schedule at this time last year made it nearly impossible for me to find time to sit down and write and release this story. Now, he's 3-years-old as of 10/10/16, but again, due to everything going on, and taking forever to get my last multi-chapter story released, that being, Bedtime Banishment, once again, this story got delayed again. Well say no more! I don't care what the world tries to do, I'm not stopping at anything now to finally getting this story released, no matter what I have to do! Of course, I originally wrote this roughly twenty days ago, but seems between not feeling well on top of a case of writer's block, people I've known for ten years taking forever to answer me back on Twitter with regards to an audio post I put up, only to make me feel even more miserable in the end, making it nearly impossible for me to stay focused on writing anything for that matter, and then, my cruddy family and their cruddy problems, seems whenever I've tried to sit down and work on this story, it's like the world doesn't want me to release it by the way everybody left and right has been treating me and standing in my way. I mean, g willickers! Honestly, it's a bunch of bologna, and I wish everybody who didn't have anything nice to say would just, leave me alone and let me do my favorite activities in peace. Anyway, that's where I'm going to end the rant, but still, it's just, really annoying, and I wish it would stop already! You'd think not being in school anymore would give me all of the time in the world to do nothing but write Fan Fiction, but as you can see, that sadly, isn't true, and I'm terribly sorry about that. Anyway, this is also the last story I have scheduled for release at this time, where much of it is inspired by my nephew, and or things I've observed and witnessed when spending time with my nephew, as all other stories listed on my profile at this time are either based off of life experiences for me only, various Rugrats episodes, or episodes of other TV shows I've come to enjoy, like Fuller House, or heck, even if it was thanks to my nephew introducing me to them, like Curious George for example, or they're ideas thought up by other Fan Fiction users who gave them to me, or they came up while having conversations with other Fan Fiction users and authors over time. So until time spent with my nephew inspires anything new, enjoy what will be the last and final story at this time, that is way overdue for release.

Zack's Birthday Surprise

Summary: It's Zack's first birthday, and a surprise party is being planned for him, but when Kimi spoils the surprise, can she find something special to make it up to him? Meanwhile, Zack attends Golden Apple Daycare for the very first time, and Dil has his first dentist appointment with Dr. Homer, much to Tommy's dismay.

Disclaimer: I do not own the original Rugrats characters, they're the property of their original creaters. I do own Zack Wehrenberg and his Aunty Celeste, as well as Bookworm and Logan, though the name of Logan was thought up by Boris Yeltsin. Also, not sure if they'll appear, but just to cover myself, the OC of Peter belongs to TCKing12, Jesse belongs to Jesse Barrow Stories DEAD, and the OC's of Kai and Kya belong to Vinzgirl.

Chapter 1, Spoiling the Surprise

It was a bright, sunny afternoon in Yucaipa, California. The bulk of the gang was outside in Tommy and Dil's backyard, mostly the kids and their mom's, or in Zack's case, his aunt, as Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Kimi all sat in the grass, putting together a huge puzzle with various shapes on it, playing quietly, while Betty, Didi, Kira, and Celeste sat off to the side at the picnic table, discussing Zack's upcoming first birthday party. Zack and Dil were still inside, taking their naps on blankets and pillows laid out on the floor of the playpen, as the other toddlers had awakened shortly before they were ready to, and all of the fathers were either off at work, or in Stu's case, he had headed off to Home Depot to pick up some more materials for future inventions he hoped to build. Jesse Barrow was sadly home with the Chickenpox, and wouldn't be able to make it to Zack's birthday party the following day, but little did everybody know that Jesse's absence, would be the least of their worries.

"So, how goes getting things ready for Zack's big birthday party tomorrow?" Betty asked Celeste, who was sipping on an Arnold Palmer, while Betty was sipping on an ice coffee, and everybody else at the picnic table had glasses of ice tea in front of them.

"It's going great! I spoke with Peter earlier, and while he's not usually one for dressing up in funny costumes except at Halloween, he's agreed to dress up as Super Why for Zack's party tomorrow. Gosh! Zack is going to be so surprised!" Celeste cried.

Tommy overheard the entire conversation between the adults, as a minute later, he noticed his mommy and Celeste get up from the picnic table to go wake up Dil and Zack from their naps in the living room, and decided to take this quick opportunity to turn to his friends, remembering that Zack's first birthday wasn't too far away. And while they hadn't known him in their little circle of friends for very long at this point, they wanted to help make his first birthday very special.

"Did you hear that you guys? Zack's firstest birpday is tomorrow!" Tommy said.

"I know! Me and Lillian are going to the Reptar store tomorrow morning to pick out a present for him, mommy toldid us on the way over to play earlier." Phil said.

"No she didn't, Phillip." Lil argued.

"Yes she did, Lillian." Phil argued back.

"No she didn't." Lil argued.

"Yes she did." Phil argued.

"Didn't!" Lil screamed.

"Did!" Phil screamed back, just as Kimi interrupted them.

"You guys, what do you think of Peter dressing up as Zack's favoritest stuper hero, Super Why. He's gonna be so happy!" Kimi cried.

"Yeah, but I think the growed ups want it to be a surprise, so whatever we do, we can't say nothing to him about Super Why, whoever that is. Got it?" Tommy said to the others.

"Got it." Chuckie, Kimi, Phil and Lil all said in unison, before everybody returned to building their puzzle in the grass, trying to not look too obvious when Celeste and Didi returned to the yard with Dil and Zack.

Luckily upon waking them up from their naps, both boys needed diaper changes, giving the toddlers outside more time to hold their conversation before the birthday boy himself came out there. Little did they know that one of the toddlers would find keeping a secret easier said than done. A few minutes later, Celeste and Didi returned to the yard with Zack and Dil, and placed them down in the grass, where they crawled over to the other toddlers, playing with their giant shapes puzzle.

"Hi Tommy." Dil cried, sitting in the grass next to his big brother, who looked up from the puzzle to stare over in his direction.

"Hi Dilly, have a nice nappy?" Tommy asked.

"Uh huh." Dil replied.

Zack looked around and saw there were still several more pieces of the puzzle needing to be put together.

"I see you guys are still working on that puzzle. I toldid you it was a pretty big puzzle." Zack commented.

"Yeah, it is, lots of pieces to share with us." Chuckie said.

"It was nice of your grandma and grandpa on your mommy's side of the family to send this puzzle to you as an early birpday present." Lil commented.

"Thanks Lil, I thought so too." Zack replied, picking up a yellow triangle shaped piece in the grass and placing it into the dark purple board with the other yellow, blue, and red shape pieces.

"I bet you can't wait til tomorrow when it's your real birpday." Phil said.

"Nope, I sure can't." Zack said.

"Yeah! Cuz tomorrow, Super Why is coming to your party!" Kimi cried.

Just then, she realized what she said, covering her mouth, her face red with embarrassment.

"Ooops." Kimi cried behind her hand.

"Super Why is coming to my party? Oh boy! This is the bestest surprise ever!" Zack cried.

But as Kimi looked around the circle of toddlers in the grass, she saw that Zack was the only one with a smile on his face. Dil looked a bit confused, seeing he hadn't been there for the original conversation, not to mention, he was much younger than the rest of the group, so he didn't quite understand how surprises actually worked, but Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil all looked less than amused, glaring at Kimi with disappointment written all over their faces.

"Kimi how could you?" Chuckie cried.

"How could I what?" Kimi asked.

"Spoil the surprise." Chuckie snapped, crossing his arms and looking away from his sister.

"I didn't mean to, I was just, really excited that's all." Kimi replied, tears starting to fall down her face.

Before anybody else could speak up though, an all-too familiar voice called for them from inside the kitchen.

"It's snack time kids." Didi called from the kitchen door out on to the patio.

Completely forgetting about their puzzle in the grass, all of the toddlers got up and ran into the kitchen for snack time, which consisted of Reptar cookies and apple juice. However, while everybody enjoyed their snack, there was one little girl at that table who felt just awful.

" _I just ruined Zack's firstest birpday._ " Kimi thought to herself, as she slowly nibbled on her Reptar cookie, staring down at her place at the table, unsure of what to do at this point.

The toddlers all ate their snack in silence, then went off to the living room, where they all sat down on the floor of the playpen.

"Hey, where did our puzzle we were playing with go?" Phil asked, looking around the playpen.

Tommy looked out the large sliding glass doors that made up the back of the playpen that looked out into the backyard, and saw that they had left the puzzle out in the grass.

"I think we lefted it outside. I'll go get it and be right back you guys." Tommy said, standing up from his spot on the carpet, unlatching the playpen with his screwdriver and heading into the kitchen where all of the moms and Aunty Celeste were sitting around the kitchen table resuming their conversation, as Tommy saw to heading out the open back door into the backyard to gather up the puzzle and bring it inside for him and his brother and friends to finish putting together before everybody had to go home.

However, when he returned to the kitchen, he overheard something that nearly made him drop the puzzle he was carrying to the floor.

"You know, the new Reptar store has opened up here in town. I hear it's the only store of its kind in the entire United States. I'm planning to take the pups there tomorrow to pick out birthday presents for Zack, assuming things aren't overly busy at the Java Lava." Betty said.

"I'm planning to take Chuckie and Kimi, so if you can't take Phil and Lil, just give me however much money you were planning on spending on presents, and I'd gladly let them come along with us to pick out presents tomorrow." Kira suggested.

"I still need to pick out a few things too. However, I'm working overtime tomorrow morning so I can take off early tomorrow afternoon for the birthday party. In fact, that's why I'll be taking Zack to Golden Apple Daycare. This way, we can not only make Zack's party as much of a surprise as possible, but it will help me get Zack prepared for preschool in a few years, as I hear this daycare offers a preschool type program for kids ages three to five." Celeste said.

"That's nice and all, but I should warn you that daycare is not preschool. Though I have no trouble with you doing this tomorrow, as in the morning, we have Dil's first appointment with the dent, uh, tooth fairy." Didi replied.

It was Didi's comment about Dil's first appointment with the tooth fairy that made Tommy nearly freeze at the door back into the kitchen from outside, like he had seen a ghost. Sure he had witnessed a lot of firsts throughout both, his own life and in Dil's. While it did get overlooked, he was technically the first one to give Dil his first bite of solid food when they were missing in the forest right after his birth. However, it wasn't all that much of a celebratory moment, between Dil being an irritating little brat, and becoming more so covered in the bananas than eating them, becoming a treat for the circus monkeys, it only made it one of those overlooked things, that nobody much looked back on. In fact, Dil's first really celebratory moment was when he stuck his foot in his mouth sometime post that venture, seeing their folks had taken forever to start keeping his baby book, proving that Dil was smart enough to stay with the family. But this first was very different. Sure, Tommy had several firsts since his first birthday, prior to getting his one and only little brother, like his first cut at the park when he pricked his finger on a thorn bush post rescuing a baby bird from the middle of the sidewalk, but he had Angelica to thank for making that first ten times worse than it really was in the end. Even the first time somebody slept over at his house wasn't all that pleasant, and again, it's all because Angelica was the first one to do this. But this was one first that Angelica didn't have anything to do with it. This first was made unpleasant by the creepy looking tooth fairy and his decision to get his mommy and daddy to take his bottle away. And while this terrible ordeal only lasted a day, it was still an unpleasant day at that, and he knew how much Dil still liked, both his bottle and his binkie. Little did he even think that it would eventually, happen to him, and now, here it was.

"I hope you're not taking Dil to that Doctor Homer quack or whatever his name is. I remember when you took Tommy there. He tried to convince you to start weaning after he had barely turned a year old, and that was the last time I let Phil and Lil have their morning bottles of hot milk over at your place, after your son tried to take one of them from him." Betty said loudly.

"Really? This man believes in weaning at barely a year old? Remind me to not take Zack to him once his teeth start appearing." Celeste commented.

"I take the pups to a nice lady in town named Joice Griff. She hasn't mentioned much about weaning, she's more concerned that I get their teeth brushed every night." Betty said.

"Chas and I take Chuckie and Kimi to Doctor Hallister, who's quite a lovely pediatric dentist, and swears by what's said in the Lipschitz books. Only start to grow worried if the child is still wanting bottles and sucking on their thumb by ages four and five." Kira said.

"Well don't you worry. After how miserable Tommy was that one day I tried to wean him way back when, I don't plan to pressure Dil into doing the same." Didi said.

"Just, promise me that if that quack does anything you don't feel comfortable with, you'll walk out of his office without finishing the appointment." Betty said.

Didi put a finger up to her lips and thought about it for a few minutes, not sure what to do, as not only was Doctor Homer Tommy's dentist, and soon to be Dil's dentist, but he was a family dentist for the entire family. She wasn't sure if she really wanted to go through the headache of finding someone new, but when mentioning the appointment to Stu the day before when making it, he asked to not go this time, as ever since he made that comment about braces at Tommy's first visit, he's refused to go back except for his own appointments, and even then he's still unhappy about the constant complaints he'd get from him about needing to get braces. He was just, too lazy to go find someone new that would respect his decision. Didi told him that he wouldn't have to come along, as long as he saw to decorating for Zack's party, since they'd be holding it at their place, and while he didn't really want to do this, he decided to go along with party decorating, if it meant not having to get passed up in front of both of his boys at the dentist's office.

Back in the playpen, the gang started to notice that Tommy had been gone a really long time.

"You guys, I wonder what's taking Tommy so long." Chuckie commented worriedly.

"I don't know." Zack replied.

"Well I'd better go find him." Chuckie said, standing up and leaving the playpen which Tommy had left open upon going to get the puzzle.

The three-year-old redhead approached the kitchen, where he found Tommy standing in the doorway from the kitchen to the backyard, looking like he had just seen a ghost.

"Are you okay Tommy?" Chuckie asked.

This startled Tommy out of his thoughts, as he glared straight into Chuckie's face, which was inches away from his.

"Uh, yeah Chuckie I'm fine. Come on, let's go back and finish our puzzle." Tommy said, walking towards the living room, with Chuckie closely following behind him.

Though the redhead could tell by the look in his best friend's eyes that something was troubling him, he just, wasn't sure if he should ask him about it, for fear that it would only frighten him, seeing he was after all, the biggest fraidy cat he knew of for the most part. The dynamic duo returned to the living room to the playpen, where Tommy sat the puzzle and its remaining pieces on the floor, while Chuckie sat down where he was previously sitting, and everybody saw to finishing the puzzle together. Zack couldn't help that Kimi still looked upset.

"Come on Kimi, I'm not mad that you spoiled the surprise for my firstest birpday, why are you still upset?" Zack asked.

"Cuz, I wanted your firstest birpday to be extra special! I member my firstest birpday with my friends, Taffy sang a special birpday song for me, and we had melted birpday cake." Kimi said.

"Wow really? I wonder if Taffy will be at my party too." Zack wondered out loud.

"I can honestly say, I don't know." Kimi said, looking away from Zack with a frown.

"Wait a minute you guys, I heard our mommies and Zack's Aunty talking, and I think you guys, uh, without Zack, are going to the new Reptar store to pick out presents. Maybe you can get something special for Zack to make up for ruining the surprise." Tommy suggested.

"Wow really? I've always wanted to go to the Reptar store. Thanks for the idea Tommy. I'll definitely do just that." Kimi said.

"And I look forward to seeing whatever special present you end up getting me." Zack said with a smile.

This helped Kimi to feel better, as she smiled and blushed in Zack's direction, but deep down, she only hoped she found something special, not just because you only turn one once, but for an entirely different reason that she couldn't bring herself to share with him, not yet anyway. Then, realizing how Tommy was so good at finding things, she turned her attention to him, as he was placing a blue hectagon into the puzzle.

"Hey Tommy, do you think you could help us find good presents for Zack tomorrow at the Reptar store?" Kimi asked.

Tommy frowned and looked away.

"I'm sorry you guys, but I can't help." Tommy replied, looking disappointed, that look of worry in his face again.

"How come Tommy?" Phil asked.

"Tomorrow is Dilly's firstest trip to the tooth fairy according to what I heard my mommy saying in the kitchen." Tommy replied.

"A tooth fairy? Oh cool! Maybe it's not just a tooth fairy, but a alium tooth fairy." Dil cried excitedly.

"No Dil, it's not." Tommy replied in a very serious tone.

The other toddlers just looked at him with confused looks, as none of them had ever thought any type of fairy could be bad, except for that time when the fairy bob mother came and turned Dil into a doll, but they all decided for both, Tommy and Dil's sake, to not bring that up.

Before anybody could say anything else, all of the adults walked into the living room to get their kids ready to go.

"Come on you two, time to head home for dinner." Betty said, picking up Phil and Lil out of the playpen, while Kira came up to grab up Chuckie and Kimi.

"Come on Chuckie and Kimi, time to go." Kira said, taking each of her kid's hands and leading them out of the playpen.

Following closely behind Kira was Celeste, who reached in and grabbed up her nephew.

"Come on Zachary, we need to be going too, but you'll see all of your little friends tomorrow afternoon after finishing up your first day at daycare." Celeste said.

This got Zack really excited, as he had never been to daycare before, but sadly, he'd have to learn about such a place on his own, since he was heading home away from all of his little friends, but if going to daycare was something you did once you reached a-whole-year-old, then this really made the blond toddler feel really grown up.

The rest of that night throughout supper and getting ready for bed was more or less, uneventful for the bulk of the toddlers, as Zack thought about what daycare might be like, with all of the new friends he might make, and new toys he'd get to play with. Did it take place outdoors at a setting similar to the park? With lots of playground equipment? Was it indoors like when he'd come over to play at Tommy and Dil's house in their playpen? Would all of the kids be nice? Or would there be any there who were like Angelica who he'd have to try to avoid at all cost, or better yet, stand up to and show them that being mean wasn't right.

Kimi, as she saw to drifting off to sleep, thought more about presents she could get for Zack at the Reptar store. Maybe she could get him a Reptar doll, but then she remembered, he already had one of those. Or maybe she could get him some new Reptar sheets for his Reptar bed. Again, he already had those too. Poor Kimi was at a loss of what to get who she thought to be her best friend, and she only hoped her trip to the Reptar store the following day would be a huge success.

However, while the bulk of the gang was having fairly decent thoughts, Dil was somewhat confused by this whole, tooth fairy business, while Tommy, fell asleep that night, feeling worried about the following day, as he had a nightmare. In the nightmare, they were now in Doctor Homer's office, and it was just as he remembered it that first time, with one slight difference. This time, his one-year-old brother Dil was sitting in the dental chair, while Tommy stood off to the side with his mommy, and Dil was sucking on a pacifier. Doctor Homer approached the small toddler, looking less than amused.

"Now let's, remove this from our mouth, so we can have a look." Doctor Homer said, his evil smile making the situation all the more nauciating, as he pulled the pacifier out from Dil's mouth, making the poor child cry and scream.

"Now now little man, don't cry." Doctor Homer said, but this didn't get Dil to be quiet.

At this point, Tommy couldn't take it anymore, and ran up to Doctor Homer, snatching the pacifier out of his hand, placing it back into Dil's mouth.

"There you go Dilly." Tommy said, happy he got his brother to quiet down, but in the end, only making things worse.

Doctor Homer then turned to their mom.

"Hmmm, I see you let your youngest still suck on pacifiers, even after he's started getting teeth, just as I'm guessing you never started weaning Tommy here, after I specifically suggested you start doing so, back when you brought him here for the first time last year." Doctor Homer said.

"Well, uh…" Didi started to stammer, just as Doctor Homer went to the chart on the wall and pulled it down.

"Must we go over this again. This child, his parents let him drink from bottles and suck on pacifiers forever, while this child…" Doctor Homer said, pointing to the two faces in the picture, one of them with crooked spaced out creepy looking teeth, while the other child had a perfect smile.

But it was then that Tommy realized that it was indeed a dream, as he noticed something about the picture that he had never noticed before. The two-year-old toddler saw the heads move in the picture, as it came to life, and the two little boys, sprang out of the picture and into the room, laughing evilly.

"Don't think your baby brother will ever look like me." The boy with the perfect smile said, running over to where Tommy and Dil were standing.

"Oh no no no, he's gonna look like me." The boy with the creepy crooked teeth said, grabbing up Dil from the dentist chair and dragging him over to a whole in the wall, which led into the air conditioning vents.

"Dil!" Tommy cried, but it was too late.

"Sorry kid, looks like your little brother is mine now." The crooked teethed kid said, shoving Dil into the air conditioner vents, as he crawled in after him, stuffing up the whole with several layers of styrephome, making it nearly impossible for anybody to follow them in there.

An angry looking Tommy turned towards the child that remained, the one with the perfect smile.

"Oh no worries, you'll see your brother again, in a bazillion years, when he's turned into a vampire and comes back to suck your blood! Ha ha ha ha ha!" The perfectly smiling kid cackled evily.

"No! That can't be true." Tommy cried.

"You wanna bet kid?" The smiling kid asked.

"No! I want Dil back." Tommy demanded.

"Then follow me." The smiling kid said, as he climbed through the whole in the wall that once was the picture of him and the crooked toothed child, Tommy crawling close behind him.

However, upon climbing through the whole in the wall, they found themselves at a massive train track layout, and a large train coming down the track in their direction. It stopped in front of the two boys, and they climbed inside, where the train took them past endless stretches of grass and trees, little towns where the people looked slightly older in each town they passed, and soon, nighttime fell on the land, and the train came to a complete stop.

"Everybody off the train, this is the last stop." The conductor announced, sounding very much like Doctor Homer, but Tommy didn't think much of it, at this point, he wanted to find his brother, and he only hoped he was still in one piece.

"Where's Dil?" Tommy asked angrily, as he and the smiling straight teethed kid stepped off the train into a large forest.

"Follow me." The perfect smiling kid said, as Tommy followed him deep into the forest, where a large boy sat with strawberry red hair, and just as the crooked teethed child said, he had a smile that looked all too similar.

" _That's not Dilly, he's too big to be him, unless, we traveled to the foocher._ " Tommy thought to himself, as the courageous toddler stepped in front of the large boy, who had just finished slerping some blood out of the leg of a monkey.

"Dil? Is that you?" Tommy asked.

"My name's Dil, that's right, I'm Dil, the alien vampire, and now, I shall suck your blood!" Dil screamed.

"But you can't drink my blood, you're my brother!" Tommy cried, but it was too late.

The next thing he knew, Dil had stuck a straw into Tommy's neck, and started sucking his blood, causing the poor toddler to deflate like a balloon losing its air, until there was nothing left, and he was flat on the ground. At that point, Tommy awoke from the dream, shaking in fear, as he stared across the dimly lit room over at Dil's crib, where he was peacefully sleeping and sucking on a pacifier. The two-year-old managed not to scream, as he took some deep breaths, trying to calm down and think about his first trip to the tooth fairy, versus Dil's upcoming trip, and what he could have done differently to have made that trip not so horrible. It then hit him what he did wrong. No sooner had the appointment finished, when he felt really thirsty, after having Doctor Homer's hands in his mouth. So likewise, he pulled a bottle to drink out of his diaper bag, and dropped it on the floor. The doctor saw it and suggested to his mommy that she begin taking it away, or as they called it, weaning. Realizing this fact, he knew exactly what to do. He got out of bed and tip-towed over to Dil's crib, where he started tapping lightly on the bars.

"Dil, are you awake? Can we talk?" Tommy asked.

Dil opened one eye and stared sleepily at his older brother who was staring in at him. He removed the pacifier from his mouth and sat up.

"What do you want? I'm trying to sleep." Dil said sleepily, somewhat annoyed.

"It's about that tooth fairy." Tommy said.

"Why are you so worried? Did Yucky tell you something I should know, that you and I both know isn't true?" Dil asked.

" _I wish._ " Tommy thought to himself, clearing his throat before giving his real answer to Dil's question.

"Dil, if you don't want to see the bad side of this tooth fairy, just, promise me you won't drink any bottles or suck on your binkie from the time we leave to go see him, until we get home." Tommy said.

Dil just glared at his brother in shock. Never in the hair over a year that he had been alive had his brother recommended him to not have a bottle or suck on his pacifier. He even vaguely recalled this one time at the park when Tommy stood up to him when Chuckie took his bottle because he was drinking it too fast, and Chuckie was trying to be a safety officer or something, and Tommy was mad cuz Chuckie had made him cry.

"What do you mean, don't suck on my binkie?" Dil asked.

"Just, don't! I don't know, hide it in your diapie or something till we finish with the tooth fairy, all right?" Tommy snapped.

"Are you sure about this?" Dil asked, looking confused.

"Just, trust me okay?" Tommy said.

Dil let out a reluctant sigh, as he stuffed his pacifier into his diaper and tried to go back to sleep, still a bit confused by this whole thing, while Tommy, on-the-other-hand, went and got back into bed at this point.

While he had given Dil a plan that would hopefully help him get through this first appointment without any tears, he knew his brother to be quite stubborn and having his own way of doing things at points. As he lay there awake, unsure of what the next day would bring, he only hoped that his younger brother would trust him and take his word for it, but just in case, he would see that the only one who would give up his bottle and pacifier when he was ready to, was Dil himself.

And this, ends chapter 1. So what will happen at the dentist? How will Zack's first day at Golden Apple Daycare go? And will Kimi find the perfect birthday gift for Zack at the Reptar store? Find out next time.


	2. Dil's Trip to the Tooth Fairy

Author's Note: I forgot to put this at the end of the last chapter, so I'll put it here. In chapter 1, I made references to the following Rugrats episodes. Slumber Party and Weaning Tommy from season 1, The First Cut from season 5, The Rugrats Movie, Officer Chuckie from season 6, Hello Dilly from season 8, and Kimi Takes the Cake from season 9. I'm also sorry I didn't get this chapter released yesterday. I had a terrible headache and spent most of the day in bed. Luckily I'm feeling better now, so let's move on, to the next chapter!

Chapter 2, Dil's Trip to the Tooth Fairy

As the night continued to prowl along, the confused one-year-old Dil Pickles managed to get back to sleep, while worried two-year-old Tommy Pickles lay awake for a while, until sleep finally came. Though it didn't last long, as he had another nightmare, but it was one of those, deep sleep nightmares that all he could recall was feeling a hot burning sensation upon awakening to find himself letting out a loud scream of terror. He quieted down quickly, hoping he didn't awaken his little brother who was sleeping across the room, and to his surprise, he hadn't. Though he couldn't understand what left him so scared, most likely another nightscare about the upcoming dreadful trip to the tooth fairy. Glancing over towards the window, he saw it wasn't light out yet, so try as he might, he tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't.

Not wanting to wake up Dil, he lay there quietly, dozing every now and then, but it wasn't very restful sleep. Eventually, the sun rose and Didi came in to wake up the two boys. She got them into fresh diapers, dressed for the day and took them downstairs to have their breakfast. As they were eating, Tommy looked up from his bowl of Reptar cereal over at Dil who was eating some oatmeal that their mommy was spoon feeding him. He could see the one tooth that had come in on the top row of Dil's gums inside his mouth, as a lump tightened in his chest. Meanwhile, Dil glanced over at Tommy, who he saw looked worried. Just then, Stu came into the kitchen.

"Uh, Deed, where's the scotch tape?" Stu asked.

Didi let out a sigh as she put down the bowl of Dil's oatmeal on to his highchair tray and went off to help Stu look. Dil looked over at his brother, noticing that worried look on his face.

"Come on Tommy, I bet it's a really nice tooth fairy." Dil commented.

"No! Not a nice tooth fairy." Tommy hissed loudly, taking another bite of his Reptar cereal.

Now Dil was starting to grow worried. Usually he was the one worried while his older brother was trying to assure him that everything would be okay, but if his brother was being really serious about this tooth fairy person, was he really as bad as he was making him out to be? And if this was true, then why was their mommy taking them there? These thoughts raced through Dil's head, as he and his brother finished their breakfast in silence, and they got ready to go to the appointment.

"It's time to go to the tooth fairy Dil." Didi said, wiping his face and hands clean of oatmeal that he managed to get all over himself after his mommy hadn't come back to finish feeding him his breakfast, attempting to feed himself.

Tommy, feeling exhausted from getting very little sleep the night before, and worried about what was to come, let out a sigh as he got down from his booster seat at the table, and felt a headache coming on. But this was no time to cry. He had to stay strong for his younger brother, and be prepared for anything coming their way. A short while later, Didi had the two boys strapped in the car.

"Bye guys." Stu called from the garage, waving, as Didi backed the car out of the driveway, and Tommy waved goodbye to his daddy.

The drive to the dentist's office was also quiet, as Tommy and Dil looked out their windows of the car. On the way to the dentist office, they passed the Reptar store, with its huge neon sign out front that looked like Reptar.

" _Wish we were going to see Reptar and not the tooth fairy._ " Tommy thought to himself, as their mommy drove past and towards the dentist office.

Before they knew it, she was turning into the parking lot, and soon they'd meet their worst nightmare. Didi got the boys out of the car, and carrying Dil in one arm while holding Tommy's hand, as he was getting to be too big to carry, or at least, carry him and Dil at the same time, she led them inside the building. Upon entering, there were two flights of stairs. One going down and another going up. They took the stairs heading up and came to a door on the right, which Didi opened. Upon entering the dentist office, which all the boys saw at this point were several chairs, some of them vacated while others had people waiting to go in for appointments, and a desk with a window. Behind the window sat a friendly lady with dark hair writing on a clipboard.

"Good morning Mrs. Pickles." The lady said.

"Good morning Clara. We're here for Dil's first appointment with Doctor Homer." Didi said.

"Take a seat, Doctor Homer will be with you shortly." Clara said, as she walked over to two adjacent vacated chairs, where she sat down, placing Dil in her lap, and Tommy quietly sat down beside his mommy.

As the two-year-old sat there, he thought about getting his brother to run away with him, but then remembered when he tried to do that back when he went to get his booster shot at a completely different doctor's office, only to get in trouble, so decided against it. Good thing, as once he dismissed such a thought from his mind, an all-too familiar creepy voice, called out Dil's name.

"Dil Pickles." Doctor Homer called from a doorway off to Tommy's right.

"Coming." Didi said, getting up from the chair.

Tommy turned for a brief second to see the all-too familiar tall man in the doorway. He gulped at the sight of this man, as he slowly got up from his chair, taking his mommy's free hand and they headed back to his office. Not much had changed, the office looked just like it did the last time he was there, only just as he figured, like in his horrible nightmare he had the night before, Dil was placed in the huge dentist chair, while Tommy was placed in a regular chair like the ones out in the waiting room across the dentist office.

"Now you sit still here sweetie while the tooth fairy examines Dil." Didi said, patting Tommy on the head while she went back over to be close by to her youngest child, in the event he grew nervous, like her oldest child did his first time here.

Doctor Homer came over and took a look. And just as he figured, Dil sat there, looking a bit nervous, as his mouth was closed.

"Open, open." Doctor Homer encouraged.

Staring at this person's perfect, but creepy smile, it hit him that his big brother was right. Something was a bit, off putting about this man, and while he usually opened his mouth for pretty much anything, he now saw why his brother was so worried.

"Come on Dilly, open up for the airplane." Didi said, picking up a toy airplane on a shelf of toys the dentist had in his office.

Remembering what worked for Tommy, Doctor Homer reached into his desk and pulled out the Reptar mask, putting it on his face and pretending to be Reptar, roaring loudly. However, while he recalled Tommy gasping, he did a bit more damage when it came to Dil. Seeing this guy, half Reptar, half man, didn't exactly fit right with Dil, as he started whailing at the top of his lungs.

"Now now, don't cry, everything's going to be all right." Didi said, rubbing Dil's back, but he wasn't buying it.

Then, he remembered what always helped him in troubled times. Forgetting all about the promise he made to his brother in the middle of the night, he reached into his diaper, pulled out his pacifier, and stuck it into his mouth.

" _That's better._ " Dil thought to himself, as he leaned back in the dentist chair, happily sucking on his binkie.

Little did the one-year-old toddler know, he had made a huge mistake.

"I see your youngest is still sucking on pacifiers." Doctor Homer said, reaching up to Dil's mouth and removing the pacifier without a second thought.

"Well…" Didi stammered, as Doctor Homer cut her off.

"Well I'm sure you're well aware that pacifiers are the first thing to go when the teeth start appearing." Doctor Homer said, loudly enough for Didi to hear, as Dil had started crying again, and this time, he couldn't get his pacifier back, because Doctor Homer went over to an overflowing trash can across the room, and tossed the pacifier inside.

Before tossing it away, he did point out the teeth marks all over the nipple, and a tiny whole, where it was obvious that Dil had bit into it.

"See this whole? Once a child starts biting on these things, it's time for them to go." Doctor Homer said, throwing the pacifier in the trash.

Dil calmed down, mainly because something told him he'd most likely never see his precious binkie ever again, and he also caught a glimpse of Tommy, who looked pretty angry at this point. Doctor Homer went back over to Dil, who was starting to calm down, and started examining him. Didi couldn't help but notice that Doctor Homer was sticking his bare hands into the child's mouth.

"Uh, it may be none of my business, but don't you think you should put some gloves on before examining Dil's teeth?" Didi asked.

"Don't need to. And I see that he's got a nice tooth coming in on the top of his mouth, and a few more starting to come in." Doctor Homer explained, touching the surrounding area, pointing out small bumps on Dil's gums, indicating new teeth starting to come in.

However, this not only felt tender, but while he usually didn't mind the taste of anything he put in his mouth, like this one time he could recall putting somebody's hand in his mouth was when he was really little. It was before they went to that place with the giant Reptar robot and where they met Kimi. On this particular day at the park, his brother and friends were feeding him watermellons. Dil loved the taste so much, that he started drooling all over Chuckie's hand, as it smelled and tasted like watermellons, seeing he had been feeding him. But this tooth fairy guy's hands tasted nothing like delicious watermellons or anything all that tasty for that matter. They tasted like that paste stuff he had seen his parents and Tommy use from time to time at the sink on their teeth while he'd be off to the side in the bathtub, finishing his bath.

It didn't taste much better than it smelled, and it only made the poor child sick of his stomach. Just then, Dil spit up all over Doctor Homer, then proceeded to cry loudly.

"Yuck!" Doctor Homer cried, rushing off to a sink to wash his hands.

At that moment, Tommy couldn't take it anymore. He wasn't sure if he should be angry at Doctor Homer for taking his brother's binkie away from him, or at Dil for not keeping his binkie hidden in his diaper until they got home, but if there was one thing he couldn't stand, was people making his brother cry.

"Nobody makes my brother cry and gets away with it." Tommy protested, as he stood up out of his chair, running head first for the overflowing garbage can on the opposite side of the room.

However, the garbage can was too tall for him to try to reach in over the brim and grab out Dil's pacifier, so he did the next best thing. He knocked the garbage can over, making a loud crash, as its contents hit the floor, startling the two adults, and Dil out of the dentist chair who ran over to Tommy.

"Tommy! What on earth!" Didi cried, but neither one of the toddlers were paying any attention to their mommy at this point, as they saw to going through all of the garbage, trying to find Dil's pacifier.

Unfortunately, it looked like knocking over the garbage can only sent them on a wild goose chase. There were several pacifiers, along with baby bottles, dirty diapers, wipes, and napkins, as well as those throw away bibs and old cups that patients used to wrence out their mouths spilled out on the floor. And everything was such a huge mess, that finding Dil's exact pacifier, was going to be nearly impossible to find. Of course, as all of this was going on, Didi was growing more and more disgusted by the second.

"When did you last empty your garbage, the 1950's?" Didi asked, rolling her eyes at Doctor Homer.

"I don't think that's any of your business. While we're at it, let's see how your teeth are doing." Doctor Homer said, approaching the woman, who only backed away nervously, her hand covering her mouth.

"Uh, no." Didi called from behind her hand, muffling her voice a bit.

"Well from what I could see, your teeth are looking perfect as always, just as your boys teeth will be, assuming you've been taking my advice about weaning of course." Doctor Homer said.

Didi nearly had a heart attack at that point, but didn't want to break down in front of her kids, not to mention she was already pretty disgusted by his failure to use gloves, and his overflowing garbage can. Meanwhile, Tommy didn't say it, but judging by all of the baby stuff he found in the garbage can, it looked like he and Dil weren't the tooth fairy's only victims.

" _He's been hurting other babies too? Taking away their bottles and binkies and making them cry? That's it, we gotta get out of here!_ " Tommy thought to himself, grabbing Dil's hand as he saw to dragging his brother out of the room while their mommy and the tooth fairy weren't looking.

"Where are we going?" Dil asked.

"Out, away from this man. We're gonna find a way to stop him." Tommy said.

"But how are we going to do that?" Dil asked, once the two boys were out in the hall.

"I don't know." Tommy replied, looking for the way to the waiting room.

Back in the office, Didi and Doctor Homer were continuing their little quarrel, as he started to pick up the mess of garbage, only becoming covered in the stuff.

"You know, I've been reading in Lipschitz, and he recommends to only take action with taking a child off the bottle if they're still doing it at an advanced age." Didi commented.

"You, follow the advice, of a shrink?" Doctor Homer asked, irritated.

"Doctor Lipschitz is not a shrink, he's a highly respected child psychologist, and he gives good advice. Much better than yours. I'll tell you, I tried to wean Tommy, and after the first day, the child was miserable. I couldn't stand to see him so miserable. And you know what? Sure he still gets bottles at nap time and bedtime, but over time, he's been slowly starting to drink out of a cup, because he was ready to. Of course it might have helped that he saw Chuckie starting to use them after we returned from our trip to Los Vegas a while back, but my point is, I'm not going to make either of my children give up something they love because you say so. They'll stop sucking on binkies and drinking bottles when they're ready, and not a moment sooner." Didi protested loudly.

By this time, Doctor Homer was looking around and didn't see either one of the toddlers in sight.

"Where are your boys?" Doctor Homer asked.

"Oh my! My kids!" Didi screamed, running out of his office, tripping over a bottle that had rolled out of Doctor Homer's reach that he hadn't picked up from the trash debree on the floor.

Didi fell flat on her face in the hall, just as the secretary and another person they weren't expecting to see, came out a door from across the hall. It was Peter, but something seemed different about him as he quietly helped Didi up to her feet.

"Are ru o ay?" Peter asked, barely able to get his words out.

"Peter? What are you doing here?" Didi asked in surprise at seeing him.

Peter tried to respond, but it came out as jibberish again. Just then, the secretary walked up, carrying Tommy and Dil, who she ran out and grabbed up as soon as she saw them come out into the waiting room without their mommy.

"Mrs. Pickles, I believe these are your boys." Clara said.

"Thank you Clara." Didi said, turning her attention to her and grabbing her boys, putting Tommy down on the floor, but taking a firm grab of his hand so he couldn't get away.

Tommy looked up and saw that Peter was before them.

"Peter? Is that you?" Tommy asked.

"Om?" Peter cried, not making any sense.

"What's wrong with Peter?" Dil whispered to Tommy.

"I don't know." Tommy whispered back, just as Doctor Homer staggered out of his office to all of the commotion in the hallway.

"Ah, King Peter Albany of the Confederacy. How did that emergency filling go? Told you Doctor Rudy could do the trick." Doctor Homer said.

"blab le bla ar ra ra ra." Peter replied, still not being able to speak correctly, because his mouth was still numb from the novicane used while the filling was replaced.

"Are you going to be all right by this afternoon to play Super Why at Zack's party?" Didi asked worried.

Peter quietly frowned, as he walked towards the waiting room where Clara had returned. At that moment, a man with red hair walked out from the office where Peter had recently been standing in the doorway.

"I'm Rudy, is there a problem?" Rudy asked.

"Yes, there is a problem. First of all, one of your fellow employees refuses to use gloves when examining his patients, and he expects us to follow his advice to the letter!" Didi screamed.

"Well, if you don't want your kkids to end up getting cavities and being too numbed up to speak when we do and redo their fillings, then you will follow my advice." Doctor Homer snapped.

"Well say no more! My kids are filthy, thanks to getting covered in your trash, you made my youngest cry, and I've never been so disgusted in my entire life! My friend Betty was right. I don't have to take a look at your dental school diploma to know you're a quack. And if I were your boss, I'd be firing you in a minute." Didi screamed, taking Tommy and Dil quickly out of the dentist office without saying another word.

Right before they got to the top of the stairs and closed the door behind them, they overheard Rudy approaching Doctor Homer.

"Doctor Homer, I think you'd better come with me." Rudy said.

"I'm not, fired, am I?" Doctor Homer asked.

"Yes." Rudy replied, just as the door clicked closed behind Didi, as she carried Dil and led Tommy down the stairs and out to the parking lot.

No sooner were they in the parking lot, where they saw a limo pulled up out front, and Peter getting inside to head back to his castle. Before Didi could call out to him, the limo had driven off, but she couldn't help but sniff the air, smelling the trash her kids were previously covered in. Feeling disgusted, she quickly got her boys into their car seats, went around to the driver's side of the car, and got in, turning on the car and heading for home. Once they had left the parking lot, Dil turned to Tommy.

"You were right Tommy, that tooth fairy was terrible! I'm sorry I didn't listen to you about keeping my binkie hidden, cuz now it's gone forever. But I've gots just one question though. Even though from what I could tell, you looked mad when the tooth fairy tooked it away from me, why did you help me? Weren't you mad at me too?" Dil asked.

"Well yeah, but you're my little brother, and, it's my sponsitivity to take care of you and make sure nothing bad happens. And you know what else? Nobody's gonna make you do anything except, you." Tommy said.

"You mean that?" Dil asked.

"Sure! Once we find you another binkie back at home, you suck on it as long as you want, till you can't suck on it no more. After all, I had to show my mommy and daddy that I wasn't going to stop drinking bottles till I was ready, and it tooked me a whole day, but I did it, and I'm not gonna let anybody make you give up things before you're ready neither. I member this one time when you were littlerer, and everyone tried to get you to walk." Tommy said.

"Didn't Phil and Lil try to make me walk or something?" Dil asked.

"Yeah, cuz we wanted you to play with Chuckie's Follow me Reptar toy, but I toldid them you weren't gonna walk till you were good and ready, and look at you now. You can walk pretty well now that you're biggerer, cuz you were ready to do it." Tommy said.

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Though I'm just, really glad we don't gotta see that tooth fairy no more. Specially after I saw what somebody there did to Peter. I don't not wanna be able to talk no more." Dil said.

"You don't gotta worry Dilly, nobody's gonna be taking your binkies no more, or trying to break your voice, ever." Tommy said, just as they were passing the Reptar store once again.

Noticing the neon Reptar sign out the window, Didi hesitated, thinking of turning into the parking lot, until she got a good wiff of the air.

"Well kids, I'd take you to the Reptar store and see if we can't catch up with Betty and Kira and your little friends to pick out a present for Zack, but you two are filthy! We're heading home for a bath first." Didi said, heading in the direction of home.

While they were glad to be out of there, Tommy and Dil couldn't help but wonder, how were their friends making out at the Reptar store, and would Peter be okay to play Super Why at Zack's party later on that afternoon. The boys were also wondering if they'd get time for a nap, between having a restless night's sleep the previous night and a long eventful morning at the tooth fairy's office, but first thing first, take their bath so their mommy could breethe without nearly feeling sick of her stomach.

And this, ends chapter 2.

Author's Note: First of all, episodes referenced in this chapter are, The Shot from season 2, Dil We Meet Again from season 6, and A Step at a Time from season 8. And having Peter finding it difficult to talk after getting some dental work done, was inspired by a bit in an episode of Full House, when Joey Gladstone returned from the dentist, and he had trouble talking, making Stephanie freak out because she had read a horoscope claiming that a misunderstanding would occur at home, and sure enough, she was at home, and she couldn't understand Joey, because if memory serves me correct, he had to get a filling replaced in one of his teeth, and my guess is, the novicane used to numb his mouth, hadn't warn off yet. And the bit towards the beginning of the chapter where Tommy had a second nightmare but no memories of it was taken from my own life as of late, where I keep waking up screaming in terror after feeling extremely hot for a second, but can't remember anything about the dream. Also, having Didi tell Doctor Homer that she didn't wean him like he recommended, was an idea given to me by Olaughlinhunter, thanks for that. And the line I had Tommy say before going off to try to get Dil's pacifier back, sounds like something he might say, seeing when he has to be, he'll protect his brother, and doesn't like it when people make him cry, as I do recall seeing in several episodes of the show, including Hand-Me-Downs, when he himself didn't like making him cry by hiding the toys from him, all because he thought he'd disappear, believing one of Angelica's bogus stories at the time. And the layout of the dentist office, having the entrance of the building be at a landing, with the dentist office up a flight of stairs and on the right-hand side of the hall was inspired by the dentist office I go to once every six month, as that's how it's laid out. Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and we'll see how things are making out at the Reptar store with getting Zack a birthday present, in particular, with Kimi picking out a present, come the next chapter, so please, do stay tuned!


	3. The Reptar Store

Author's Note: I forgot to mention it in my author's note at the end of chapter 2, but I also recently released the first chapter of another new story I started that's actually the sequel to another story done by another author on this site. It's called The Real Rugrats Life Revival, and most likely, it will be a while before another chapter is posted in that story, again, you can read the first chapter that's been posted to better understand why this is, but I did get permission from this particular author to do this sequel, and should you decide to check it out, I do hope you enjoy it! Also, I should point out that the setting for this chapter, The Reptar Store, was inspired by The Curious George Store, out in Boston, Massachusetts, that is not only the only location for that store in the United States, but they carry an abundance of Curious George merchandise that you can't get anywhere else, and you'll see that The Reptar Store will parody this Curious George store, very closely I might add. Another Curious George franchise will also be parodied in the form of Reptar come the final chapter of this story as well, but again, we'll get to that later. For now, let's move on, to the next chapter of this story!

Chapter 3, The Reptar Store

While Tommy and Dil were seeing to battling the dreaded creepy tooth fairy, the rest of the gang, minus the birthday boy himself, were off on their own mission, to pick out birthday presents for Zack at the newly opened Reptar store in town. Celeste and Didi had both given Kira some money to pick out presents for Zack, since Didi wasn't sure how Dil's dentist appointment would go, and Celeste had to work overtime at her job, and Kira wasn't sure if she might have to take Phil and Lil shopping with her two kids, or if Betty could come along for the trip too, but they'd soon find out, when everybody gathered together at the Java Lava not long after the coffee shop opened. There was the usual hustle and bussle of early morning traffic in and out of the coffee shop, as people came in to pick up orders to go to take with them to work, plus they had to wait until the store opened, which it wouldn't open until later that morning. Meanwhile, Chuckie, Kimi, Phil and Lil were placed down into the playpen set up in the back of the coffee shop, while Kira, Chas, and Betty saw to taking the orders of the various customers who came in.

"I can't wait to go to the Reptar store, it's gonna be so cool!" Phil exclaimed, as he colored a picture of Reptar in a coloring book.

"Yeah!" Lil added, as she colored a picture of Robosnails in another coloring book.

"I can't wait to get there and hopefully, find the bestest birpday present for Zachary!" Kimi cried, rolling a pink ball covered in blue and white stars to Chuckie.

"Do you know what you wanna get him yet Kimi?" Chuckie asked, upon catching the ball as it rolled towards him.

"Nope, but I'm sure I'll find something good." Kimi said, as Chuckie rolled the ball back to her, and she caught it.

The toddlers kept entertained with their toys they had to play with at the coffee shop, until the next thing they knew, their mommies were coming to collect them and take them on their big trip.

"Let's go see Reptar kids." Betty said, gathering up Phil and Lil, while Kira saw to gathering up Chuckie and Kimi.

By this time, business had quieted down quite a bit at the coffee shop, making it easier for Chas to run things by himself for a few hours, as long as Betty was back by lunch time, when things would most likely get busy again.

"Good luck." Chas called from behind the counter, as he waved goodbye with one hand, while sticking a straw into somebody's drink with the other, almost missing, nearly knocking the drink to the floor.

"Thanks Chazzy, we'll see you later." Betty called, as she and Kira along with their kids, left the coffee shop and headed for their cars.

They had thought about taking one car, but just in case Betty had to rush back to the coffee shop, they felt it be better to take separate cars, and Kira could take the kids to Stu and Didi's after the shopping trip was done. The kids were so excited, it took the jaws of life to keep them still long enough to get them strapped into their car seats.

"Now hold still you wiggle worms." Betty said, as Phil continued to squirm around in his seat while she had a difficult time getting him buckled.

Eventually, everybody was buckled in and they were off to the store. After driving for a little while, they approached the huge neon Reptar sign at the edge of the parking lot.

"Reptar!" All of the kids cried in unison upon seeing the sign, as their mommies turned the corner into the parking lot and found parking spaces.

They unloaded the car and everybody headed into the store. Despite having an oversized parking lot, Betty and Kira were surprised at how small the store was inside. It did have several narrow rows of shelves, filled with tons of Reptar merchandise imaginable. Everything from toys, to clothes, to party favors, and even Halloween costumes of Reptar, Robosnails, and Dectar. In fact, this was the only place where anybody could buy the child sized Reptar costumes, as the costumes worn by personelle who played Reptar at various functions were typically provided by the Reptar Corperation themselves in Tokyo Japan. Betty and Kira walked up and down the isles, looking at all of the various Reptar things the store had to offer, as the kids glanced around, fascinated by everything they were seeing.

"See anything you wanna get Zachary yet Kimi?" Lil asked.

"No, not yet." Kimi replied, as Kira turned the stroller carrying her down another isle.

Betty though caught out of the corner of her eye, a small table set up with some various toys on it. The toys were like little puzzles, only they were three-dimentional and they were built to look like Reptar, Dectar and Robosnails. However, they were made out of magnets, and were designed to come apart in three different pieces, allowing one to connect them in different combinations, making their own versions of the characters. So for example, somebody could take Reptar's head, Dectar's wings, and Robosnails feet, and put them together to make their own creation. Phil spotted the bizarre figure on the table, and started pointing in that direction from his double stroller next to Lil, getting Betty's attention.

"Hey why don't we let the tikes go play over here with these toys while we look at that isle over there." Betty suggested.

"Are you sure about this?" Kira asked.

"Awe don't worry about it, they'll be fine." Betty said, getting her twins out of their stroller over by the table of toys, while Chuckie hesitantly walked over and pulled out a small chair at the table and sat down, and Kira got Kimi situated.

"Now you kids play here, we'll be right back." Kira said, patting Kimi and Chuckie on the tops of their heads, before joining Betty on one of the isles of toys.

All of the kids started playing with the toys at the table, having fun making the different combinations, when Kimi saw this as her opportunity to sneak off and find the perfect present for Zack.

"Now's our chance you guys." Kimi said.

"To do what?" Phil asked.

"To find a present for Zachary!" Kimi cried.

Phil and Lil glanced up at Kimi, who looked eager to go on this adventure, then back down at the three-dimentional puzzles, then back up at Kimi, and back down at the table again.

"Uh, me and Lillian wanna stay here and play with the Reptar puzzles." Phil said.

"Yeah, sorry Kimi." Lil added.

"And, uh, I'd better stay here." Chuckie said nervously.

"Well, okay." Kimi said with disappointment, but finding Zack the perfect present was too important to her, so she quietly crawled down to the floor, and snuck off, thankful her mommy and Phil and Lil's mommy were too busy looking at toys on one of the isles to notice her leaving.

Kimi quietly roamed the isles of the store, until a cold breeze and a loud motor got her attention.

"What's that?" She asked herself, as she approached the back of the tiny store, where she found a tiny freezer section.

On an isle near by, there was loads of food items, including the all-too familiar Reptar bars, Reptar cookies, along with Reptar cookie cutters, decorations for birthday cakes, and much more. It looked like they even carried Reptar cereal, Reptar macaroni and cheese, Reptar fruit snacks, and in one of the cold cases that Kimi passed were juice boxes with Reptar's picture on the front. Though the thing that really got her attention, was a box of Reptar popcickles.

"Reptar popcickles, Zack would love these!" Kimi cried, as she tried to reach up to the freezer door to get them out, but found she couldn't reach the handle very well.

She ran back to the table where her brother, Phil, and Lil were still playing with the 3-D puzzles, to see if she could invest in getting their help.

"You guys, I founded the perfect present for Zachary, but I need help getting it." Kimi cried.

"What did you find?" Lil asked.

"Come on everyone and I'll show you." Kimi said, as Phil and Lil got up from their spots at the table to follow her, while Chuckie was a bit hesitant at first, until he noticed he was all by himself, so quickly got up to go catch up with his sister and friends.

Kimi led everybody back to the frozen section, to the door where the Reptar popcickles sat.

"That's what I wanna get Zachary." Kimi said, pointing to a box of popcickles on the top shelf of the freezer case.

"Pop cickles?" Chuckie asked.

"Uh huh, Zack loves popcickles, and I bet he'll love these!" Kimi cried.

"Oh all right, we'll help you." Chuckie said with a reluctant sigh, as he knelt down on the floor, with Phil and Lil climbing on top of him, and Kimi making her way to the top of Lil's head, where she could now reach the door handle, pulling it open, and reaching up to the top shelf, where she accidentally knocked several boxes of popcickles down to the floor.

Elsewhere in the store, Betty and Kira were looking at the various toys on the isles. So far they had picked out some blocks with the characters on them, they found some of those 3-D puzzles that the kids were playing with at the table, thinking Zack might enjoy those too, and then, Kira found the perfect present for Didi's boys to give him.

"Look at this Betty, it's a train, big enough to fit the Reptar action figures." Kira explained, getting the box down from the shelf, along with a set of Reptar action figures to go with it.

"Oh nice. Yeah, I seem to recall Zack really liking trains. He would have fun with that." Betty commented.

"I thought we could get this for Tommy and Dil to give Zack, since so far, it doesn't look like Didi has shown up yet." Kira said.

"Yeah, I wonder how their appointment with that quack is going anyway?" Betty asked.

"Oh I'm sure it's going just fine. I mean, maybe that man has different views on how to take care of a child's teeth than we do, but at least he's most likely from around here, so can speak English. Kimi's first dentist was a disaster! We had just moved to Paris and I had started working at Euroreptarland when I discovered her first teeth coming in. So I took her to the dentist, and while the guy seemed nice, he mostly spoke French, with English being his second language, and not knowing very much of it. I finally had to get Kimi to open her mouth, and to this day, I'll never understand if she didn't open her mouth because she was nervous, or if she simply couldn't understand what he was saying." Kira explained.

Before Betty could open up her mouth to speak, a loud crash was heard from the back of the store. Worried that it might have been their kids, they gathered up the presents they had picked out for their kids, Tommy, and Dil to give Zack, and went to investigate. Noticing their kids were no longer playing with the toys at the table, they knew it couldn't be good, but of course, this was nothing new to either one of these moms, as they had been down this road, several times before.

Meanwhile, back where Kimi had knocked the popcickles to the floor, the toddlers gathered around the mess, looking at what had fallen down. They found they had knocked off two versions of the Reptar popcickles. One package was the standard ones found in most supermarkets, which only contained four flavors and colors, those being orange, red, yellow and green, in the flavors of lime, lemon, orange, and cherry, while Kimi picked up the ultimate package off of the floor, which had eight flavors and colors of the Reptar popcickles, the four flavors in the standard package, along with purple, blue, pink and white, with one slight difference. In this packaging, it had cherry for the red popcickle, orange for the orange popcickle, pineapple for the orange popcickle, and mango for the green popcickle. And for the extra flavors, the purple one was grape flavored, blue was blueberry, pink was watermelon, and the white was lemon. Though out of the eight flavors, it was the blue one that got Kimi's attention.

"Look you guys, this one has a blueberry flavored Reptar in it, and I happen to know that Zachary loves blueberries." Kimi said with excitement.

She was really pleased that she found these popcickles, as no sooner had she made this comment, when their mommies had found them.

"Uh oh." Betty said, upon seeing the mess on the floor.

"Oh dear." Kira added, as a store clerk walked up to them.

"Is there a problem here?" The clerk asked.

"No we're just, picking out popcickles, but looks like our kids picked them out themselves." Betty replied.

Kira knelt down to Kimi's level, who held out the box to her mommy.

"Kimi, do you want to get these?" Kira asked.

"Uh huh." Kimi replied, handing the box to her mommy, who put it with the other items they were getting.

The store clerk saw to picking up the remaining boxes off of the floor, while Betty noticed Phil needed a diaper change, and by this point, Chuckie looked like he needed to go potty.

"Need to go potty mommy." Chuckie cried, holding his crotch.

Now that he was three, while he mostly spoke in short sentences to the adults, he would speak up every once in a while. Kira looked up to the clerk.

"Excuse me, where's your bathroom?" Kira asked.

The clerk turned to her after getting the last box of popcickles back into the freezer and turned to her, with a look of disappointment on his face.

"I'm sorry mam, but we don't have a bathroom here for the customers." The clerk said.

"No bathroom? What kind of place are you running anyway?" Betty screamed loud enough for everybody shopping in the store to hear, turning their heads in her direction, much to Kira's embarrassment.

"Come on Betty, let's go pay for these things and get to Stu and Didi's before Chuckie has an accident." Kira said, grabbing Chuckie's hand, while Betty got her kids and Kimi into their strollers, and they all headed for the register.

While they were checking out, Kira heard her phone vibrate in her purse, so decided to take a look at it once they got outside to the parking lot. It was also growing towards lunch time, as Betty glanced at her phone when they got outside and saw what time it was getting to be.

"Mind taking the pups? Looks like Chas might need me at the Java Lava fairly soon. We'll meet you at Stu and Didi's later on this afternoon for the party." Betty said.

"Sure, but looks like I have a text here from Celeste. She says in her message that she received a call from Peter, but couldn't understand anything he was saying, so asked him to call Stu and Didi, or get somebody to call them on his behalf if he had anything he needed to discuss about the party. She has also asked that I run and pick up Zack from daycare, because she was originally suppose to get off at lunch time, taking him home for a nap before they came over later for the party, but that she's not going to be able to get off work until later this afternoon. She only agreed to leave him there for half a day, and she's since contacted Sandra, I guess that's the lady in charge at the daycare center, stating that I'd be in to pick him up." Kira read aloud in the text to Betty.

"I thought only the parent or guardian could pick up their kids from daycare." Betty said.

"No, as long as they know who's coming, and they can sign the child out, anybody can pick them up." Kira said.

"Well then I'll leave the pups with you and I'll see you later." Betty said, helping Kira to get all of the kids strapped into their car seats, loaded into Kira's car, where she then saw to driving in the direction of Golden Apple Daycare, while Betty got into her car and drove back to the Java Lava to take on her afternoon shift.

Once all of the kids were in the car, Kimi smiled happily, being thankful she managed to pick out a gift for Zack. She couldn't wait to give him his popcickles, as not only would there be one for him, but chances are there were enough popcickles in that box for everybody. However, while that was her gift to him for unwrapping, she had another special gift that he wouldn't be able to unwrap, that she wasn't even going to tell her brother and friends about, until it was time.

Soon, Kira had pulled into the parking lot at Golden Apple Daycare, and everybody got out of the car, where she had them pass through the electric gates into the yard of the center, and up to the door of the large red building. They all headed inside, where Phil and Lil remained in their stroller, Chuckie held on to his mommy's dress, and stayed really close to her upon seeing the sight of several unfamiliar kids near by, running around and playing, while Kimi, looking around, she spotted Zack off to the side, lying on the floor with an ice pack on the back of his head and crying at the top of his lungs. At that moment, a lady approached Kira.

"Hi, I'm Sandra." The lady introduced herself.

"I'm Kira, not sure if Celeste told you that I'd be coming this afternoon to collect Zack." Kira said.

"Yes, we received a call from her late this morning, stating that you'd be picking him up. Good thing too. One of our bigger kids hit him hard in the head with a bunch of rocks, and Zack has been in a bunch of pain. He's not unconscious, nor does he seem to have a concussion, but it must really be bothering him, as he won't stop crying. He's lying over on the floor with an ice pack on his head, hopefully bringing down the swelling." Sandra explained.

"Oh dear. Well thanks for telling me." Kira said, as she and Sandra headed in the direction of where Zack was lying, Kimi, now standing next to him.

While Kira was having her conversation with Sandra, Kimi broke away from her mommy to go see what was going on. She was about to approach Zack, when a little boy wearing a yellow short sleeve shirt, blue shorts with red suspenders and dark brown, almost black hair, approached her.

"Hi, who are you?" The boy asked.

"My name's Kimi, I'm looking for Zachary." Kimi replied.

"Hi, I'm William, but everybody here calls me Wise Guy on account I know everything that goes on here." Wise Guy introduced himself.

"So, why is Zack so upset?" Kimi asked.

"Well, to make a long story short. There's this big kid named Logan. Zack got into a bit of a tiff with him, and let's just say, their fight has left him thinking he was a baby-baby, and very much, a cry baby at that." Wise Guy explained.

"Oh no!" Kimi cried, scooting past Wise Guy over to where Zack was.

"Zachary! It's me, Kimi!" Kimi called, but it was no use, the blond newly one-year-old continued to cry, hardly recognizing her.

A short while later, Kira came over to collect Kimi and Zack, seeing to taking them, along with Chuckie, Phil and Lil out of the daycare center, and off to Tommy and Dil's house.

And this, ends chapter 3. So what all went down to make Zack think he has turned into a baby-baby again? We'll learn all about his daycare experience come the next chapter, so please, do stay tuned.

Author's Note: I do hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I'll admit, as far as I know, the Curious George store from what I know I don't believe they sell food items, only toys and books, and some clothes and things, but I thought it might be interesting to add this as a bonus, giving a nod to the fact that over the last year, my nephew has grown to really like popcickles, plus, you'll see in a later chapter that the popcickles are going to play a really important role in this story. Also, the other day while eating breakfast, I was watching the season 6 episode, Chuckerfly on DVD, where at a point in the episode, they had Dummi Bears popcickles, or as Stu called them in the episode, Dummi Pops, and while I originally came up with the idea for Reptar popcickles in my one-shot story, Zack's Beginnings, which in the timeline, takes place not too long post the events of this story, it makes sense to include them in this story as well. And the idea for the 3-D figurines that could be taken apart and made into crazy character creations were also inspired by both, some toys that my nephew has, and toys, that actually came from the Curious George store as a matter of fact. Only the toy in real life is a set of vehicles, those being, an airplane, a boat, a car, and a firetruck, which can come apart in three or four different pieces, and they're magnetic, allowing you to make different combination vehicles, like a car with airplane wings, or part boat, part truck, and part car, or any number of combinations for that matter. Also, just like this Reptar store in the story doesn't have a bathroom, neither does the Curious George store in Boston, and in fact, my family when going there to shop over a year ago now, had to leave, just to go find a bathroom to change Zack's diapers, since there was no bathroom there, which surprised me just as much as it did Betty in the story here. Anyway, I do hope everybody enjoyed the chapter, and after I see to go getting me some sleep, as I'm finally starting to grow somewhat tired, I'll hopefully, have the next chapter where we look at how things went for Zack overall at Golden Apple Daycare, up sometime later on today or in the evening sometime at the earliest.


	4. The Big House (Revisited)

Author's Note: I'm terribly, terribly sorry for not updating and finishing this story back in November of 2016 as originally planned. To put it simply, life got in the way, amongst other things I'd rather not talk about here, as the memories of such events and encounters are just, way too painful, as I'll simply say they left me in distress when they happened, but I'm back now, and so, let's have, the next chapter of this story!

Chapter 4, The Big House (Revisited)

Well the big day had arrived. Yep, it was indeed, Zack's first birthday, as his aunty came into the room and got him up from his Reptar racecar bed and got him dressed.

"Happy Birthday Zachary, you're one-year's-old today." Celeste said, giving him a kiss on the forehead and putting him into a fresh diaper and a clean dark blue t-shirt before taking him into the kitchen for some breakfast.

He had his usual breakfast, a bowl of Reptar cereal, two strips of bacon, and a bottle of hot milk and ovaltine, as his aunt saw to getting his diaper bag packed and her things together for work.

"Today, you'll be going to daycare for the very first time! No worries though, somebody will pick you up at lunch, and, well, you'll get to take a nice nap." Celeste said excitedly while she was getting things put together.

Zack gasp in shock.

" _No birthday party?_ " Zack thought to himself.

Then it hit him, everybody seemed upset the day before about Kimi ruining the surprise, perhaps his party had been canceled. He tried not to think about it though, as he finished his bottle of hot milk, eager to go to daycare for the first time. Shortly after he finished his bottle, Celeste scooped him out of his booster seat at the table, put him in her driverless van, and they were off to daycare. Upon getting there, he noticed the gate on the electric fence that he and his aunt passed through to get into the yard of the daycare, and walked up the sidewalk path towards the red brick building. Zack was in his stroller, while his aunt used her white cane with one hand and pushed with the other hand to find her way up to the building. Soon, they arrived at the steps of the building, and she opened the door and made her way inside with Zack in his stroller. A minute later, a nice looking lady approached them.

"Good morning, I'm Sandra." The lady greeted.

"Hi Sandra, Celeste Wehrenberg here with Zack." Celeste said, shaking Sandra's hand.

"And this must be Zachary." Sandra said, smiling and giving him a pat on the head.

"Zack, but Zachary is fine. Here's his diaper bag and I shall be back at around lunch time to pick him up. Though if I do end up having to work overtime, I'll give you a call and let you know who will be picking him up instead." Celeste said, as she was led over to a desk where she signed Zack's name on a piece of paper using a pen and her signature guide.

"Well allow me to introduce you to our specialists, as I'm Sandra, the head director of our renovated facility of Golden Apple Daycare, where our motto is, an apple a day keeps the children at bay. I'm also the daycare's playtime coordinator and monitor psychological development." Sandra explained, just as two TV screens popped on over on the wall on either side of her.

Zack, still in his stroller, admired all of this, as he saw two men pop up, one on each screen. Both men had brown hair, but one of them wore a red shirt and black glasses, while the other one wore a blue shirt and red glasses. The man in the red shirt spoke up first.

"Hello, I'm Jonathan. I take care of food at our fine facilities here. Not to worry, everything I serve here is one-hundred percent safe and allergy free. We've even gone gluton free since our renovation." Jonathan said.

After he finished, the other man in the blue shirt spoke up, holding up a fresh diaper to the screen.

"Hi! I'm Bob! I change the diapers! Cloth diapers, or Pull-ups, I do it all." Bob said.

"Wow! Well, I see Zack is in good hands here." Celeste said, bending down and getting her nephew out of his stroller, placing him down on the floor.

"I'll see you this afternoon sweetie, have fun." Celeste said, giving him a pat on the head, and a hug and a kiss goodbye, before taking the stroller and her white cane, heading back towards the exit of the daycare.

Once she was gone, normally, one would think Zack would have started crying, but no. Rather, he was too excited, looking around at all of the toys to play with and the kids playing nearby, he figured this was going to be the greatest morning and start to his first birthday in his entire life, or though he thought.

The one-year-old blond toddled through the playroom, looking for something to do, when a slightly older boy of about age two, with dark brown hair, wearing a yellow shirt, and blue pants with red suspenders, walked up to him.

"Hi!" The dark haired boy greeted.

"Hi, I'm Zack." Zack said.

"Hi, my name's William, but everybody here calls me Wise Guy, on account I know what goes on here." Wise Guy introduced himself.

"Hi Wise Guy." Zack replied, shaking Wise Guy's hand.

"Welcome to daycare Zack. Here, let me show you around." Wise Guy said, offering his hand to Zack, as he took it and they walked around the play area.

They approached a table where Dough Boy, now looking slightly older than he did when Tommy attended was playing. He was currently sculpting a blue and white dog out of Clay-doh.

"That's Doughboy. He can make anything out of clay-doh." Wise Guy explained, as Zack admired his art.

"Wow! Nice dog. I'm Zack by the way. Nice to meet you. And no, you don't need to shake my hand, as I'm sure they're covered in clay-doh." Zack said.

"Hi." Doughboy greeted with a smile, before going back to work on his masterpiece.

"Yep, Doughboy is the only one left here with me who's been here ever since I started attending here around the time of my firstest birpday." Wise Guy explained.

"Oh? Well who else have you had the pleasure of knowing?" Zack asked, as they continued to stroll through the playroom together.

"Well there was Morgan. He use to cry a lot. Everybody called him crybaby, but he was genuinely a nice kid. Sadly though, around the time of the rennovations, his family moved away, and he never came back. There was also Builder, the sweet young girl who could build just about anything with blocks. Nice, tall structures. Luckily she gave me some tips before she moved back to Pokyo, Japan with her mommy. And of course, Big Justin. As soon as our building begun the rennovations to the point where we all had to go to Rainy Skies Daycare because Happy Clown, formerly known as Happy Valley was over crowded, well that's when Justin left, and never came back. However, we did get some new friends, like Britney, better known as Bookworm on account of the fact that she's not only always reading books, but I mean, she's actually reading books! She already knows her alphabet, and can read the words on the pages." Wise Guy explained, pointing over to a small area in one of the corners that consisted of a bookshelf, a beanbag chair, and several of those little boardbooks scattered about on the floor.

Sitting in the beanbag chair was the little girl known as, Bookworm. She had red straight hair pulled into two ponytails on either side of her head tied with blue ribbons, and she was wearing a bright blue shirt to match, a dark blue jumper, a diaper under neath, and a pair of ankle high white socks and dark blue shoes that matched her jumper. However, she was also engrossed in one of her books so Zack and Wise Guy decided not to bother her at the moment, though deep down, Zack couldn't help admire her skills.

" _Wow! A little girl who already knows her alphabet and who knows how to read. I know my alphabet, but I wanna learn how to read books too, just like her._ " Zack thought to himself, admiring the two-year-old, almost three-year-old girl in the beanbag chair, as his face blushed a deep red.

Wise Guy turned his gaze over in Zack's direction.

"I see you're taking a liking to Bookworm. Hopefully she'll come say hi to us later." Wise Guy said.

Zack quickly turned his head away, covering his face in embarrassment.

"Uh, I do not." Zack lied, trying to hide his feelings.

Of course, he knew that if Kimi ever found out, she might be upset, or would she? Sure he liked Kimi, but did Kimi consider him a friend too? He hoped he might know by the end of the day, but his thoughts were interrupted, when a large hand grabbed him by the shoulders from behind, and gave him a huge hug. Startled, Zack nearly tripped over his feet and almost toppled backwards on the large overweight toddler who had come up behind him.

"Well, William, I didn't know we had a newcomer to our happy aboad today. Please, who do we have here?" The bigger boy asked.

"Oh, Zack, meet Logan. Big Justin's cousin, and our new leader." Wise Guy happily introduced, as Zack turned around and stared up at the three-year-old boy, who was nearly twice his size it seemed, with how overweight he was.

However, Logan had dark blond hair, wore a bright yellow shirt, red overall shorts, white socks, and brown shoes.

"Well hello there Zack, how do you do? Don't mind me, I'm a hugger!" Logan said, giving Zack a hug from the front, nearly crushing him like a pytharn.

"Uh, I'm fine Logan, sir." Zack said, struggling to breethe with how tight Logan's hug was gripping him and nearly squishing him to death.

"Sorry I hugged you so hard, but yes, I run this place, and there's a few things you ought to know. I'm in charge, and it's important that you follow our rules. You see, Golden Apple Daycare can be your best friend, it can be your worst enemy. Also, I'm sure you're aware of the, legendary, Tommy Pickles." Logan explained.

Hearing that name made Zack gasp in surprise.

"Hey! I know a kid named Tommy Pickles. Great head of dark purple hair, loves Reptar, and is an excellent big brother to his little brother Dil. Of course, last I saw him, he was worried sick about some guy called the tooth fairy their mommy was taking Dil to see today, but go on." Zack said.

"Oh, I see. The babies here tell me he had no hair, and was successful in completing an escape plan of breaking out of here, with a block tower by the door, and a key made out of Clay-doh." Logan continued.

"I see." Zack said, staring at Logan in disbelief, not sure if he could fully believe his story.

"It's true Zack, Tommy Pickles only came here for one day, and he was the first one to escape. Though are you sure we know the same one? You said he has purple hair and a little brother named Dil." Wise Guy said.

"Well there could be two of them, but I wouldn't know." Zack said.

At that moment, Logan started laughing.

"What's so funny Logan?" Zack asked, as the three boys went over to a vacated area of the playroom to build with some blocks.

"Oh, I just realized the reality of it all. Tommy Pickles, Dil Pickles. Yeah, Tommy's mommy and daddy named his baby brother after the food. Just, how sad. And I know the real reason why Tommy never returned to Golden Apple Daycare. I bet ya, his mommy and daddy named his bsaby brother that, because they only have a preschool education, and couldn't think of anything more clever. And because of their preschool education, they got fired the one day Tommy escaped when my cousin Justin ran this joint, meaning he'd never have to come back here ever again." Logan said, cackling evilly.

Zack just rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't sure what to think, but if indeed, this was the same Tommy, he probably figured for one thing, Tommy probably attended the daycare before Dil was born if Wise Guy didn't remember Dil, and if it was the same Tommy Pickles, well why would he have to come back? And why would he attend in the first place? As far as he knew, his daddy worked at home, inventing toys.

" _Hmmm, maybe Tommy's daddy had to go away on a business trip or something, and Taffy and Peter couldn't babysit that day or something._ " Zack thought to himself, obviously not knowing that Tommy had attended the daycare long before he knew either Peter or Taffy.

"Anyway, back to what I was saying before. Now, you're probably well aware that our mommies and daddies…" Logan started to explain before Zack cut him off.

"Uh, excuse me Logan, but, I live with my aunty." Zack said.

This caused Logan to start laughing again.

"Oh, I get it. You're adopted. Oh that's good. Hope that works out. I bet your aunty has a temper and will beat you shamelessly with a stick getting you taken away by child protective services." Logan said, laughing even harder.

At that moment, Zack was so angry at such a comment, he did the unthinkable. He approached Logan, and punched him hard in the stomach.

"Ow! What was that for?" Logan said, stumbling over backwards on to the floor.

"For making fun of my aunty. She's never hit me with a stick in my entire life, and if she ever gots to scold me for my wrong doings, well she has her reasons to teach me proper behavior. And while I'm at it, your daddy's head's so cracked, he's gotta wear a towel to keep his brains in. Get it? Krack head?" Zack said, starting to laugh, only making Logan stare at him with a serious expression, about ready to punch Zack in the head.

"Hey! Don't you dare talk about my daddy that way." Logan snapped, picking up a handful of blocks, about ready to throw them across the room, when he peered Sandra out of the corner of his eye, as she was walking around, checking on everybody playing.

Not wanting to get in trouble, he quietly set the blocks down on the floor and continued to yell at Zack.

"My mommy and daddy don't live together no more. In fact, it's when they stopped living together that I end up coming here most days, and having to spend my time here. Though I don't mind, I have plenty of other kids to play with, since thanks to my mommy and daddy splitting up, I'm never going to get the one thing I've always wanted, a little brother or sister." Logan concluded, looking about ready to cry.

Zack felt bad for Logan, as he not only didn't have his parents, but he'd never get any siblings either, and unless his aunt ever got married, he didn't see any little cousins in the near future either.

"Anyway, your families may tell you that you're sent here so growed ups can watch you all day while they go to work, but the real reason why you're here? To give me somebody to play with. Of course, since I started here they now have a new room, the baby-baby room." Logan said, turning his attention away from Zack over to Wise Guy.

"William, have you showed Zack about the baby-baby room yet? He looks young enough to take on that job now and I prefer to play with the older, big babies." Logan said.

"Uh, Logan, you know we're not allowed in the baby-baby room, they need to take their morning nap." Wise Guy said.

Logan grabbed Wise Guy by the shoulders and started shaking him violently.

"You do as I say, understand?" Logan snapped.

Wise Guy gulped and shook his head no, not wishing to get involved in Logan's dirty scam to get Zack in trouble with the adults by playing in the one area that was restricted, not to mention, brand new post the finish of the rennovations, hince, why this didn't exist when Tommy attended so long ago.

"Fine! Go build Clay-doh art with your little friend. I'll show Zack who's boss around here and give him his job." Logan said, letting go of Wise Guy's shoulders, who immediately ran over to another corner of the playroom where Doughboy was now making play food out of the clay-doh and putting it in the toy kitchen on plastic plates and serving everybody fun food that he had literally created.

Logan turned his attention to Zack.

"Ready Zachary?" Logan asked.

Zack hesitated at first, not sure if he could trust this guy.

"Come on Zachary, you can trust me, I'm your friend." Logan said in an innocent voice with a huge dopy grin on his face, holding his hand out for Zack to shake.

He reached out and shook Logan's hand, just as the man in the red shirt and black glasses came into the room, walking around and handing out cookies to each of the kids. Zack graciously accepted a cookie as did Logan and all of the other kids, and ate them. Of course, being gluton free and full of prunes, neither of which Zack liked the taste of very much, he spit his cookie out on to the floor.

"Yuck! That's a cookie? I understand prunes are spose to be good for your poopys, but that tasted terrible!" Zack exclaimed, stuffing the cookie into his diaper.

" _If Angelica should show up at my birpday after I leave this afternoon, and she starts picking on me, I'll have a secret weapon._ " Zack thought to himself, as Logan grabbed Zack's hand, and started dragging him through the playroom, off to an area that he and Wise Guy hadn't explored yet.

They headed down a hallway that passed by several places, a room with several tables and chairs, a kitchen, a bathroom, and finally, a large green door at the end of the hallway. Being taller than Zack, Logan reached up and turned the doorknob on this green door and opened it. As soon as the door was open, Zack peered into the room, lined with white walls covered in rainbows, with a blue carpet with a picture of a green catapiller on it, and a window off to one side letting in some sunlight. Standing before him in the room were three white cribs, each with a tiny baby inside, obviously younger than Zack, at least, no more than six-months-old or so, and on the far righthand side of the room across from the window on the left, was a changing table.

"Okay Zachary, listen up, and listen good. Your job, is to keep these babies entertained. Also, let me remind you of what we call them here. The baby in the crib on the far left, we all call her, Sucker." Logan said, pointing to the crib on the far left-hand side of the room, possessing a small baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket, who was sucking on a blue pacifier.

"The baby-baby in the middle, we call him, the thrower. So whatever you do, keep all hard objects away from him." Logan said, pointing to the crib in the middle of the room, where a baby boy wrapped in a green blanket slept, tossing and turning every so often, as he picked up a stuffed teddy bear, and tossed it out of the side of the crib on to the floor.

"And finally, I give you, Stinky. He's in the crib on the right, closest to the changing table, for obvious reasons." Logan said, pointing to the crib on the far right-hand side of the room, where a baby boy wrapped in a blue blanket slept, though if one walked closer to the crib, one would have to hold their nose, as the baby smelled awful, a mixture of the aroma of poop and sour milk, as it filled the air.

"Your job, is to keep these baby-babies entertained, bottle fed, and happy at all times. If I hear any crying from this room, or discover that you've escaped, trying to sneak back to your so called, legendary friend, who I can tell you right now with William out of earshot why Tommy really got out of here. Yeah, Tommy Pickles is a cry baby. He got kicked out because the growed ups, or screws as William prefers to call them, well, they don't like cry babies. I bet ya little Tommy Wommy is playing in a dark and dusty old attic, because his mommy and daddy can't afford to live any place else, with their preschool education and no money to afford lights." Logan said.

Zack growled in anger.

"Stop it Logan, you don't know what you're talking about. I know for a fact that Tommy's no cry baby, and his mommy and daddy did go to more than just preschool as kids I'm pretty sure. Oh, but Dil cries a lot more than Tommy does." Zack said.

"Well no wonder William doesn't know Dil. He was probably crying so much upon their arrival, that Sandra didn't let him in here, banning him from ever coming to daycare." Logan said.

Zack glared angrily at Logan, his hands planted firmly on his hips.

"I doubt it. The most logical reasoning behind Dil never coming here was that he probably wasn't born yet." Zack said.

"Well I'll ask my cousin about that later, but know this. Everything I say is the truth, and you're just a lying little toe head, who's never gonna make it past kindergarten if you even make it to preschool." Logan said.

"I may have just turndid one today, but I know Tommy and Dil better than you do, and I think I'll make it past kindergarten. It's you who's gonna be here at this daycare all of your life." Zack said.

"Oh, so you think you can be the next Wise Guy? Well then mister smart Alex, prove it. Everybody must go through the right of passage upon coming here by taking care of the baby-babies, it's one of my rules. Now get to work." Logan said, shoving Zack into the room, knocking him on his bottom, as he closed the large green door behind him and stomped off to the bathroom to use the potty before returning to the playroom to play.

There Zack sat, sitting up and staring at the door that was closed, trapped, mainly because he was too short to reach the doorknob, and didn't see much in the room to help him reach it.

" _Well, better get started._ " Zack thought to himself, as he let out a reluctant sigh, and approached the cribs slowly and cautiously, so as not to disturb the smaller babies.

Though just as he approached Sucker's crib, she spit out her pacifier and started crying. Reaching through the bars, Zack was able to grab the pacifier with his fingers, and just barely got it back into her mouth, when she spit it out, starting to cry again, the pacifier flying through the air and nearly missing Zack's head as it landed on the floor.

"Don't worry Sucker I'll figure out something." Zack said, glancing around the room to see what he could find.

Then, he spotted a baby bottle full of milk over on one of the tables. Though it was on the table next to Stinky's crib, he didn't care. Holding his nose, he toddled in that direction, picking up the bottle on the low table and bringing it back over to Sucker's crib, where he climbed up on the small table next to her crib, tossing the bottle in over the side, only Sucker needed help holding on to the large bottle of milk. Thinking fast, Zack climbed over the bars into the crib, sat down, and fed Sucker her bottle, though in actuality, it was probably meant for Stinky but he didn't care right then. Anything to keep these babies quiet so as to not get in trouble with Logan or the adults, seeing he was in a restricted area of the daycare center.

"Now drink up little baby Sucker." Zack said, feeding her the bottle, as she happily drank up the milk inside.

Though no sooner had she drunk about half of her bottle of formula, when an avalanche of stuffed animals came at Zack from behind, and Thrower in the middle crib, was now crying. Startled, Zack dropped Sucker's bottle, making her start crying, dribbling milk all over her crib, as he made his way out of the pile of animals, peering over the side of the crib where he saw Thrower was also now crying. Very unhappy at this point, he picked up a toy stuffed duck, and tossed it in Thrower's direction. He caught it, only to throw it back at Zack, giggling this entire time, while Zack was starting to get a headache from Sucker's crying because trying to play catch with Thrower and feed Sucker at the same time, was nearly impossible.

"Hold your horses! And please! Stop laughing at me Thrower, I'm doing the best I can." Zack said angrily, growing frustrated, as he tossed two teddy bears in Thrower's direction, hoping that would busy him for a few minutes, while he attempted to feed what little remained in Sucker's bottle at this point that hadn't dribbled out all over the crib.

He wiped up the milk as best as he could with her pink blanket, then gave her what little formula was left, but sadly, the tiny portion wasn't enough, as Sucker started crying again, so Zack quickly hirled himself out of the crib on to the floor, searching the room for her pacifier, then found it beneath Thrower's crib. No sooner had he picked it up and was about to carry it back over to Sucker, when Thrower reached a tiny hand out of the bars of his crib, snatched up the pacifier from Zack, and threw it in the direction of Stinky's crib, where it hit him in the head, awakening him and making him cry. In turn, Sucker was still crying, and now that Thrower was empty handed, with nothing left to throw, as he had thrown one of the teddy bears on to the changing table, while he threw the other one into the corner of the room on the opposite side of the changing table next to the wall, he was now crying. All three babies were crying at once, and poor Zack, rubbing his head, as it was hurting, wasn't sure if he could take it anymore.

" _Boy! Taking care of baby-babies isn't easy. I wonder if Dil and Kimi were this much of a headache, handful, and a hassle of frustrations for Tommy and Chuckie when they were baby-babies and they were barely my age._ " Zack thought to himself, as he started rummaging through the drawers and shelves of the changing table, looking for baby powder and a fresh diaper, figuring he'd get Stinky calmed down first, since nobody needed to smell him, as it would only get worse.

" _Note to self, ask Tommy and Chuckie about their experiences with baby-baby Dil and baby-baby Kimi later, assuming I make it out of here alive._ " Zack thought to himself, as he successfully found a fresh diaper and some powder in a drawer and on a shelf that he could reach, heading over to Stinky's crib, trying not to throw up or gag.

"I'm coming Stinky." Zack said in his loudest baby voice possible, though nobody could probably hear him with three baby-babies, crying all around him at once.

Zack placed the diaper and powder down on the table, and realizing it might be hard to change Stinky from the crib, or reach out to grab the diaper and powder from through the bars, he reached into his diaper and fetched out his plastic hammer.

"This ought to do the trick." Zack said to himself, standing on the small table, reaching up to the side of the crib, and picking the lock with the claw portion of his plastic hammer, as he undid the fasciner and got the side to lower just enough to make it easier for him to climb in, grab his supplies, and get to work.

He was amazed he was managing to handle this with three babies crying in his ears, but he hoped momentarily, it would be down to two, and then, he'd figure out how to get Thrower and Sucker to calm down, once he had Stinky in a fresh diaper.

"Okay Stinky, now hold still." Zack said, taking off the dirty diaper, and tossing it in the direction of the window, hoping the window was open.

Unfortunately, it was closed, leaving a huge pee and poop stain on the glass, much to everybody's dismay.

" _Oh no, I'm in trouble with the growed ups now. Hope I can be excused from baby-baby duty before the growed ups discover me._ " Zack thought to himself, as he attempted to put some fresh powder on to Stinky's bottom, without much success, as he kept giggling and kicking his feet around, being very uncooperative.

"Stay still Stinky!" Zack screamed, just as he heard the door to the room open from behind him.

Zack gasp, tossing down the bottle of powder he had in his hand, as he turned around and saw the nice man wearing red glasses and a blue shirt standing before him.

" _Uh oh_." Zack thought to himself, as Bob scooped him up out of the crib.

"Now now kiddo, I take care of the diapers here. Let's get you back to the playroom for some play time." Bob said, taking Zack back out into the playroom and then returning to the nursery to give the three tiny baby-babies their diaper changes.

Zack was beyond displeased At this point, he would have been happy to have been spotted by Sandra, but no, it was worse. Logan approached him, and he was beyond displeased.

"I heard crying over the monitors and through the door at points, what are you doing back out here?" Logan asked in a stirn tone of voice.

"With all due respect sir, taking care of three baby-babies is a lot of work. I'm one-year's-old now, and today's my firstest birpday. Can't I play with the biggerer kids?" Zack asked.

"Wow today's your birpday? Happy Birpday Zachary!" Wise Guys said from another corner, overhearing everything.

"Yeah! Happy Birthday Zachary!" All of the other toddlers in the daycare exclaimed, as Logan screamed at everybody to be quiet.

"Oh be quiet. Birpdays are nothing to get excited about, specially when the news said on TV this morning at my daddy's place that famous actress, Mary Kisser died. Yeah, her death is more important than this stupid little toe head's birpday any day.

"Oh, Mary Kisser died? I'm very sorry, even though I don't know who she is or what dying is all about." Zack said.

"Well mush for brains, member Princess Beya on Space Trek Babies? Well, you can kiss her goodbye, cuz now that Mary Kisser is gone, no more Princess Beya Toe Head." Logan said.

Of course, Zack had seen a few episodes of Space Trek Babies at this point, but mostly early episodes before Princess Beya was introduced, but at that moment, he could care less. He thought a birthday was more important, especially since it was his first one, and he was sick of Logan making up lies about his friend Tommy and his baby brother Dil, and calling him Toe Head.

"Don't! Call! Me! Toe! Head!" Zack screamed, picking up a pile of blocks and throwing them at Logan's head.

"Ow!" Logan cried, getting Bookworm's attention, as she dropped the book she was looking at in her beanbag chair and seeing if he was okay.

"Logan! Are you okay?" Bookworm asked.

"No! I'm not okay! My head hurts, and if this little shrimp hadn't forfitted his baby-baby duties, none of this would have happened." Logan snapped, rubbing his aching head.

"Now Logan, we understand your mommy and daddy separating is difficult, but to reduce the new kid to baby-baby duty? And tossing the fact that it's his firstest birpday aside like it were a dirty diapy is just, wrong! I'm gonna go get the growed ups, and see that you get the time out you so richly deserve." Bookworm scolded, Wise Guy nodding his head in agreement with her plan.

"I don't think so. Right now, you've got a job to do." Logan said, grabbing Bookworm by one of her jumper straps with a firm grip, not letting her go, or risking ripping her jumper if she were to try to escape.

Right then, Zack couldn't take it anymore, and was about to walk towards the doors where his aunty brought him in earlier, when Logan spotted him, letting go of Bookworm's jumper and ran up behind Zack, grabbing at the back of his shirt and tackling him down to the floor.

"I knew it! The minute nobody's looking at ya, you were gonna try to escape, just as the legendary Tommy Pickles did so long ago. Sorry kiddo, but you'll never escape, and because you failed to finish your job." Logan said.

"Bob kicked me out!" Zack interrupted.

"A growed up kicked you out? Come on Zack, you're lying. Stop making excuses, what really happened?" Logan asked.

Zack was pretty red in the face. This Logan kid was obviously a jerk, and he was starting to run out of attempts to stand up to this bully who overruled the daycare after his cousin moved away, all because he was angry about his mommy and daddy splitting up, and the lady who played Princess Beya on TV, no longer being able to do it no more.

"Tell me the truth! Oh that's right, you can't tell me the truth, because you don't know the truth from lies." Logan said.

"Yes I do. Stop making assumptions over stuff you know nothing about." Zack snapped.

"I'm the boss here, everything I say is the truth, whether you want to believe me or not, Tommy escaped here because he's a cry baby of a ash whole, and everybody knows it, and, you're about to wish you had never forfitted your duties. If you can't take care of a baby-baby, might as well be a baby-baby yourself." Logan said, turning his attention towards Doughboy.

"Doughboy! Get me some rocks!" Logan demanded.

"How would you like me to sculpt your rocks out of clay-doh? Large rocks? Pebbles?" Doughboy asked, forming a ball of clay-doh in his tiny toddler hands.

"No you fool, the blue bag of rocks on the shelf, the real rocks." Logan demanded, as he then turned his attention to Wise Guy and Bookworm.

"Wise Guy, put Zack into the time out pin, and Bookworm, bring me the book." Logan demanded, as the other two toddlers in question, did as he instructed.

"How could you do this to me Wise Guy, I thought we were friends!" Zack cried.

"Sorry Zack, but I've been reduced to following Logan's orders ever since he took over. The truth, we all have, and this place is even less of a happy place ever since we returned from our short time at Rainy Skies, and I can't wait till nextest year, when I'll be old enough to finally go to preschool." Wise Guy said, a look of disappointment on his face, as he hoisted Zack into the time out pin.

Bookworm came up to the side of the pin to ask Zack a simple question.

"What's your last name Zack?" Bookworm asked.

"Wehrenberg." Zack replied.

Bookworm, carrying a boardbook with her, handed it over to Logan, as he handed her his collection of rocks.

"Filed under w, for Wehrenberg." Logan said, flipping through the pages of a boardbook that had a picture of a tiny baby's face on the cover.

Of course, he couldn't really read, and while Bookworm could, he didn't want her assistance right now in reading what was really there, preferring to make up the words at this moment.

"To return Zack to his default birth settings, hit him hard in the back of the head with a large, pile of rocks. He should be knocked out upon impact and awaken, not knowing who he is, thinking he's a baby-baby again." Logan read aloud from the book.

Bookworm simply rolled her eyes, as she knew what it really said on that page wasn't true, but she said nothing, not wishing to get in trouble with the kid who made her his sidekick. Rather, she reluctantly handed the bag of rocks back over to Logan, who held it high in the air, bringing it down hard on Zack's head, with a loud, smack!

Zack was knocked out cold, as he hit hard on the floor of the pin, then as soon as he regained consciousness, his head was throbbing so badly, that he started whailing at the top of his lungs, hoping an adult would come to his rescue this time.

"Oh goodness!" Sandra cried, rushing over to the pin to see what had happened, Jonathan and Bob on her tail.

"What's going on?" Bob asked.

Sandra examined the child closer to notice a huge bump on his head.

"It appears that he's been hit in the head with these rocks. Logan! To the time out pin you go. And Jonathan, get this child an ice pack for his head." Sandra instructed, as the adults did their jobs.

"Are you sure he doesn't need a new diaper?" Bob asked.

"Uh uh." Sandra replied, dealing with Logan, while Zack continued to cry as Jonathan took him away and lay him down on a vacated part of the floor further away with an ice pack resting against the back of his head.

Of course, aside from being in pain, Zack couldn't remember anybody, or who these people were?

" _Where am I? Where's my aunty? And ow! My head hurts!_ " Zack thought to himself, continuing to cry, as the cold ice pack rested against his aching head.

He overheard a phone ring at a point, the other kids shouting and playing, Logan crying from time out because he hated being put there, though he couldn't remember his name, just, a big boy was crying, and right then, the only person he wanted to see or could even remember, was his aunt. Though a short while later, as he continued to cry non-stop, a nice Japanese lady with dark hair walked into the room with four other toddlers with her, the little girl who somewhat resembled the woman, ran off in Zack's direction.

"Zachary? Are you okay? What happened?" The dark haired girl asked, as a dark haired boy walked up to her and explained everything.

" _Who's Zachary?_ " Zack thought to himself, not even being able to remember his own name, as he continued to cry, feeling the physical pain of his head, and the mental pain of confusion.

A few more minutes passed, and the dark haired lady picked him up, trying to rub his back and comfort him.

"It's okay Zachary, it's all right. Your aunty will see you later, and we're gonna go to Tommy and Dil's house where you can eat lunch and take a nap." Kira said, rubbing his back.

Though Zack felt uncomfortable in this strange lady's arms. He didn't recognize Kira at all. He only wanted his aunt, and he wasn't going to stop crying until he saw her again. He was then loaded into Kira's car with the other toddlers who had accompanied her, a set of twins and a little boy with purple square rimmed glasses and uncontrollable long bright red hair, and they saw to driving away from that dreaded place, which he was glad to be leaving, even if he didn't know who he was, or if he was in a car full of strangers.

Chuckie turned to his sister.

"What's the matter with Zack Kimi?" Chuckie cried over his loud whails.

"Some big kid hurted his head, and he won't stop crying." Kimi called back.

"Uh oh, Zack gotted broked." Phil commented, barely audible over Zack's constant crying.

"What?" Kimi asked.

"Broke!" Phil and Lil screamed in unison.

Kimi glanced over at Zack, then back at her brother, Phil and Lil.

"Well I don't know if he's broked, but hopefully Tommy and Dil can help us fix him if he is!" Kimi cried, as the car drove in the direction of Tommy and Dil's house.

And this, ends chapter 4. So, will the gang be able to save Zack and restore his memory? Or will he remain mentally a baby-baby forever, not being able to celebrate his first birthday in the manner it should be celebrated in? Find out, come the next chapter.

Author's Note: I hope you guys liked the chapter. I was inspired by both, The Big House episode of Rugrats from season 2, and Toy Story 3, in particular, the time spent at Sunnyside Daycare for this chapter, and based on how the plot ends up going, you can see how much of it spoofed Toy Story 3 to a degree if you've seen the movie. Also, I wanted to include some baby-babies, which weren't there when Tommy attended Golden Apple Daycare, and I always wondered why Chuckie and Kimi went somewhere different in that season 7 episode, Dayscare, and if Golden Apple Daycare was being renovated at the time, well that would be why they didn't go there but rather, to Happy Clown Daycare instead, but with the over capacity of kids, it would explain why the kids at Golden Apple weren't at Happy Clown. Too bad, I would have loved it if we had had another encounter of these one-shot characters, only instead of meeting up with Tommy again, they'd meet Chuckie and Kimi. I think I would have liked the episode, Dayscare a lot more if we could have had a revisiting of one-shot characters from an earlier episode, five seasons prior. And oh yes, I own Bookworm, while Logan belongs to Boris Yeltsin, and thanks to some recent experiences as of late, I was able to flesh out Logan's personality a bit more, even though my week long painful experience, has been everything but fun, at least I was able to find some inspiration out of the whole ordeal. Anyway, hopefully it won't take me nearly as long to get the next chapter posted, and please, do stay tuned!


	5. Saving Zack

Author's Note: Sorry I didn't get anything released yesterday. I found I didn't feel very well much of the day, spending most of it in bed, and then late last night, I found myself, catching a radio program that was paying tribute to the late and great, George Michael, lead singer of Wham, and found I wanted to simply just, sit and listen, letting the show take me off to Dream Land, and, well, it's now another new day. No matter, I've had more time to a degree of how I wanted this chapter to go, I hope it turns out okay. Without further a due, let's move on, to the next chapter of this story!

Chapter 5, Saving Zack

By the time Kira turned the corner into the driveway of Stu and Didi's house, her two kids, and the DeVille twins, had their hands covering their ears, while Celeste's nephew was still crying uncontrollably. Poor Kira was starting to grow extremely concerned, and she only hoped that Didi would be able to help her get him calmed down, or that his aunt would be getting off work soon so she could attend to him and help get him calmed down. To her surprise, when she turned off the car, Zack stopped crying for a minute.

"Okay kids, we're here." Kira said, stepping out of the car and getting all of the toddlers unbuckled from their car seats.

She got Zack undone last, deciding she'd better carry him with the other kids walking behind her, since she didn't want to risk him getting hurt a second time. She was definitely going to see if Didi had some ice handy to put on his head, and maybe some Tylonol for him to take, as that should help bring down the pain tremendously.

Zack on-the-other-hand, stopped crying, noticing that he, along with these strangers, were at a new location, that under normal circumstances, he'd recognize instantly, but with this state of Amnesia, giving him a mind set to a time before he knew his friends, but felt safe being cared for by his aunt were in full force, he wasn't sure what to think of this pinkish orange house that the nice Japanese lady was carrying him up to. She walked up to the large red front door and rang the doorbell, a sweet buzzer sound going off inside, as footsteps approached the door, and a lady with strawberry red hair, wearing a red dress, yellow necklace, and green round remmed glasses opened the door.

" _I hope my aunty's inside._ " Zack thought to himself, as the nice lady with strawberry red hair led everybody inside.

"Hi Didi, we're here." Kira said.

"Hi Kira. We're just about to sit down for some lunch. Tommy and Dil are already in the kitchen beginning to eat their lunch. Reptar macaroni and cheese and timolli casarole are on the menu if anybody's interested." Didi said, Chuckie, Kimi, Phil and Lil all licking their lips at this point, all growing quite hungry for lunch.

Not only that, but they figured that this would give them an opportunity to talk with Tommy and Dil about Zack, and the best approach to help him feel better. Little did they know that the Pickles boys had recently finished up a difficult morning of battling the tooth fairy, and while at this point, Dil simply wanted to eat his lunch and get that nasty taste out of his mouth that was put there by Doctor Homer's smelly hands earlier, Tommy, feeling very sleep deprived, as a result of having two nightmares the previous night, not being able to get back to sleep fully as a result of being worried sick about Dil's upcoming appointment, only wanted his nap ever since they left that dreaded building, no longer having to see the creepiest face he had ever known in his life, next to Coco Labooche's in Paris.

Unfortunately, he felt it would be best to not fall asleep in the car on the way home, plus, he and Dil talked all the way there, that it was nearly impossible to fall asleep, as before he knew it, they were pulling into the driveway. Then, as soon as his mommy had him and his brother out of the car, she led them inside and marched them right upstairs to the bathroom, where she turned on the bathtub and started filling it with water, stripped them out of their clothes, and had them take a bath. Luckily with Dil being older now, he liked baths, or was starting to like them more anyway, and Tommy always loved baths, well, except for that one time when he almost got sucked down the drain a while back, but ever since he learned the following day that such a thing was impossible, he has loved taking his bath ever since, and found it a great way to end his day, or in the rare occasion, enjoyed it when he had to take one in the middle of the day, heck, he even took two baths in one day that time when he and Chuckie thought the dust bunnies were out to get them. So naturally, he and Dil had fun playing in the water, only while they had fun, with already being tired to begin with, and baths being the kind of thing to really mellow him out if he was tired enough, it only made him feel more sleepy afterwards.

" _Maybe I can go take my nappy now._ " Tommy thought to himself, as his mommy was drying him off with a towel after his and Dil's baths were finished.

"Let's get you dressed sweetie and then we'll head downstairs for some ddelicious lunch!" Didi said with a smile, placing Tommy in a fresh diaper, shorts, and t-shirt.

Dil, who was already dressed at this point, sitting over to the side, licked his lips at his mommy's comment about lunch.

" _Finally! Food! That'll get that yucky taste out of my mouth from that yucky tooth fairy person._ " Dil thought to himself, licking his lips in the process.

But Tommy on-the-other-hand, while he normally looked forward to meal time for the most part, didn't have much of an appetite today. Shortly after they were dressed post taking their baths, they were now in the kitchen sitting at the table, Dil in his highchair and Tommy in his booster seat, where Didi had just served them both some lunch. Dil, a bowl of timolli casarole, which, while he found it more fun to play with back the first time he was ever fed the stuff, the same day his daddy had made him his hopping Kangaroo walker that his brother thought was a rocketship, and Spike grew jealous, only to save his life in the end, now that he was nearing his first birthday, as he was slightly younger than Zack, putting Zack between him and his big brother age wise, even though his intelegence at points would make one wonder if he was older than any of the babies at points, Dil had grown to like the timolli casarole, and at this point, he'd take anything to eat, as long as it wasn't the taste of that yucky tooth fairy's hands, he'd be okay with it at this point. He was a very messy eater, preferring to eat with his hands, rather than trying to use a spoon, so no sooner had the bowl been placed down in front of him, when he stuck a hand in, pulled out a glob of the stuff, and stuffed it into his mouth.

" _Mmmm! That's so much better._ " Dil thought to himself, as he had his first bite of lunch, being satisfied to finally get that nasty taste out of his mouth.

Tommy however, while he normally loved his Reptar macaroni and cheese and a sippy cup of apple juice, whether it was bubbly or plain, as it wasn't uncommon to have bubbly apple juice at Peter's castle sometimes, didn't want lunch today. He sat there at his spot at the table, about ready to fall asleep, face first in his food, as he stared down at the bowl of Reptar macaroni and cheese that sat before him along with a sippy cup of regular apple juice, unsure of what to do at this point, as he now had a headache, felt overly exhausted, and simply wanted to skip lunch all together and go take his nap, his eyes being about ready to slam shut. Little did he know that while he'd get his opportunity to get a nap, it might not come right away.

No sooner had Didi set their bowls of food down in front of her two boys, when the doorbell rang. She left the boys to dine on their lunch while she went to grab the door, where Kira, along with Zack, Chuckie, Kimi, Phil, and Lil had arrived. No sooner were they inside the house, when they all headed into the kitchen. At this point, Zack had remained calm, hoping that he'd see his aunt any moment now, but no sooner were they in the kitchen, only for him to run into two more babies he didn't recognize, a baby slightly younger than a year with an inch of strawberry red hair on his head, and a two-year-old boy with dark purple hair that looked about ready to pass out in his lunch at any second, neither of which was his beloved aunt, this only started up the poor confused blond to start crying again.

"Zachary, it's okay, don't cry. We're just here for lunch with Tommy and Dil." Kira calmly said, trying to sooth the child, without much success.

Didi quickly got the remaining toddlers seated at the table with bowls of Reptar macaroni and cheese and sippy cups of apple juice, as she knew they'd prefer to have that, based on how often she's fed them in the past, then saw to Kira and the crying Zack in her arms.

"What's going on with Zack?" Didi asked.

"I don't know Didi. The lady at the daycare center when I picked him up told me that he was hit pretty hard in the head with a pile of rocks that one of the kids had on him today." Kira replied.

Didi closely examined Zack's head, noticing a huge bump on the back of it.

"Oh my! We'd better take care of this right away." Didi said, going into the freezer where she pulled out an ice pack.

Kira then remembered that she had a box of popcickles in the car along with everybody's presents.

"Mind taking Zack for me? I have some stuff I need to get out of the car." Kira said, handing the crying child over to Didi.

"Not a problem." Didi said, taking Zack and the ice pack into the living room, where she lay the child down on the couch and saw to applying it to his head, just as what was done at the daycare earlier.

"Now this ought to help bring down the swelling Zachary." Didi said, placing the ice pack on the back of Zack's head, but while it did help somewhat, it did feel cold, and all he wanted was his aunt, not all of these strange people helping to take care of him at that moment, continuing to cry.

Poor Didi felt at a loss as to what to do, as she waited for Kira to come back with her things. She came inside a minute later, where she placed the presents into the hall closet, in hopes that Zack wouldn't see anything they had bought at the Reptar store, hoping she could help Didi wrap them once the kids were all taking a nap, and went into the kitchen where she put the popcickles into the freezer on one of the bottom shelves, where from where her daughter was sitting at the table, Kimi saw where her mommy had put the popcickles. Once this was done, Kira headed into the living room to help Didi try to calm down the crying Zack, while all of the toddlers turned to one another, noticing how engrossed Dil was in his lunch, and how miserable Tommy looked, being uninterested in his lunch, taking them all by surprise.

"Wow! Dil seems to like his lunch." Phil commented.

"I'm just glad to finally have the taste of yucky tooth fairies out of my mouth." Dil replied in between bites.

Chuckie of course, noticing how his best friend looked, spoke up with concern.

"Hi Tommy, are you okay? You don't look so good." Chuckie said worriedly.

Tommy let out a huge yawn and then responded.

"I'm fine Chuckie, I'm just, really tired is all, and not really hungry." Tommy replied, in a very soft, sleepy voice, sounding pretty tired at this point.

The other toddlers went on to eat their lunch, as Tommy and Dil noticed Zack crying in the other room.

"What's wrong with Zack?" Dil asked.

"Zachary gotted hurted at the dayscare place, and he won't stop crying." Kimi replied.

"Yeah, he's been crying ever since we gotted him." Lil added.

"We think he's broked." Phil added.

Of course, hearing comments like this weren't what Tommy needed, plus, on top of feeling tired, Zack's crying in the other room was not only giving him a headache, but on top of having to relive the painful memories over the last day or so of being reminded of his first trip to the tooth fairy, now he was being reminded of what had to be the second most painful memories of his life. The day Dil came home from the hopcickle, or as they called it, the baby store back then. Sure it was only for four weeks before they went off to the forest and turned over a new leaf with one another during that whole ordeal, but to a baby, four weeks felt like a lifetime, when you're dealing with your brother ccrying nonstop, mommy and daddy paying attention to him all of the time, and on top of that, sleepless nights, and nothing being nearly as fun anymore. As everybody went on, trying to eat their lunch, all except for Tommy, they all started trying to think of ways to help Zack calm down.

"What are we gonna do Tommy?" Chuckie asked after having a few more bites of his macaroni and cheese.

But before Tommy could say anything, Didi and Kira walked in with Zack, who was still crying.

"Maybe he's hungry." Didi said, placing him in a booster seat at the table near Phil and Lil.

"What do you think he'd like?" Kira asked.

"Well, Zack will eat anything, and there's a little bit of both the timolli casarole and macaroni and cheese left." Didi replied, as she and Kira headed over to the counter where they saw to preparing lunch for Zack.

However, his toddler friends all had other plans. Phil, who was in reach of Tommy's bowl and sippy cup, noticed he wasn't eating them, and figured, why should they go to waste.

"Hey Tommy, can Zack have this?" Phil asked.

The two-year-old simply slowly shook his head yes, as Phil took the items and moved them over in front of Zack, where he and Lil, using their fingers, proceeded to start feeding him.

"Here Zack, have some yummy Reptar noodles." Lil said, picking up a glob of the macaroni with her fingers and stuffing it into Zack's jmouth.

While he couldn't recognize any of these toddlers, the macaroni did taste good, prompting him to stop crying, as he was fed the contents of the bowl along with the delicious apple juice from Tommy's untouched sippy cup to wash it down.

"We did it you guys!" Chuckie cried, as Kira and Didi looked over to see what was going on.

"Wow Didi, looks like the kids want to help make Zack feel better." Kira commented.

"I think you're right, but what about Tommy?" Didi asked, looking over at where he was sitting to see his bowl and cup were gone.

"We'll just, get him some more." Kira said, placing a small bowl of the timolli casarole down in front of Tommy, and the sippy cup that was suppose to be for Zack full of apple juice.

But just the same, Tommy wasn't hungry.

"Hey Deed! I could use some help out here hanging some of these balloons!" Stu called from the backyard, where he was still seeing to decorating for Zack's party that was taking place later that day, and struggling to keep hold of the balloons he had in his hands, as the wind started picking up outside, causing him to nearly become tangled in the string of the balloons.

Didi let out a reluctant sigh, as she and Kira headed out to the backyard.

"Coming dear!" Didi called, heading towards the backdoor.

Once the adults were out of sight, the toddlers all looked up towards Tommy, hoping he could give them some advice on how to help Zack at this point.

They were especially in need of this when no sooner were Phil and Lil done feeding him, followed by licking their fingers off of the residue from the macaroni and cheese, Zack started crying again.

"Oh no!" All of the toddlers except Tommy cried in unison.

"Now what do we do?" Lil asked.

"Yeah Tommy what do we do now?" Phil added.

Tommy sighed, feeling too exhausted, but little did he know his comment would be misinterpreted as a brilliant idea to at least get Zack calmed down.

"Well, I know! He's gots a booboo. When I've gots a booboo, mommy kisses it and makes it all better." Kimi said, getting out of her booster seat and coming over to Zack, where she climbed on his chair and kissed the back of his head.

"Let me kiss it and make it better Zachary." Kimi said, kissing the back of Zack's head.

Of course, that made him feel uncomfortable, not to mention, it didn't help the pain go away, only making him cry louder.

"It didn't work." Chuckie commented.

"I wonder why not?" Lil asked.

Kimi then realized something.

"It's like he don't recognize me. I mean, we haven't knowed Zack for that long, and I can't ever think of a time when I made him cry." Kimi commented.

Of course, they were still waiting for a response from Tommy, who finally had his opportunity to speak.

"I need a nap." Tommy said, upon letting out another loud yawn, pushing his lunch away from him, as he got down from his booster seat on to the floor, the other toddlers doing the same, as Dil climbed out of his highchair and joined all of them.

Chuckie overheard Tommy's comment over Zack's crying, only to interpret it differently from what he had originally said.

"That's a great idea Tommy." Chuckie commented.

"What?" Tommy asked in a deadpan voice.

"We get Zack to take a nap, and then, we can try to figure out why he's not recognizing us." Chuckie replied.

Of course, Tommy knew that's not what he said at all, but then a realization hit him. Maybe if they got Zack to take a nap, he could take a nap with him, finally giving everybody what they wanted.

"Okay Chuckie." Tommy said, all of the toddlers sprinting towards the living room, with Zack stumbling, being somewhat clumsy on his feet, as he was somewhat dizzy, while Tommy brought up the rear of the line, moving slowly, looking like a walking zombie at this point.

All of the other toddlers were to the living room, when Chuckie looked back to see that Tommy was struggling to keep up. Worried, he ran back into the kitchen to help his best friend.

"Are you sure you're all right Tommy?" Chuckie asked.

"Don't worry Chuckie I'll be fine, just, as long as I stay standing up." Tommy replied, grabbing on to Chuckie's shirt for dear life, as the redhead helped get his best friend to the living room.

"Okay Tommy, can you let go, you're pinching my arm." Chuckie asked.

"Oh, sorry." Tommy said, letting go of Chuckie's arm, remaining in a standing position on the living room carpet, not wishing to sit down or lie down just yet.

"So what are we gonna do?" Dil asked.

"We've gots to get Zachary to take a nap. Now, only question is, how?" Kimi asked the gang.

"I need a bottle." Tommy blerted out randomly, sounding pretty miserable and tired at this point.

"Are you sure you're okay Tommy?" Phil asked.

"Yeah, he was moving really slow, like a zombie or something." Lil added.

"Uh oh you guys, maybe Tommy's gots the Flu, like what happened to those Loud kids on TV." Chuckie said.

Of course, Tommy knew what he was referring to, so backing away slowly, he rolled his eyes at them, as he had an imaginary spot for a second, where Angelica showed up, making the babies think he had the Flu, as she pulled out a gun similar to the one that Lisa had in that particular Loud House episode, covering Tommy in Chicken Noodle Soup.

"Wow! This Flu thing gets better and better!" Phil commented, coming up to Tommy where he started licking him.

"Yeah! Tommy tastes good!" Lil cried, coming up to Tommy as the twins started licking him like Spike and Spiffi would, had they been in the room at the time.

"Guys! Stop!" Tommy cried, coming out of his daydream, only he actually screamed that out loud unknowingly at that moment.

"What? What is it?" Dil asked.

"You guys, I'm not sick, I'm just, really tired." Tommy protested, about ready to reach his breaking point, as even he too was pretty fed up and wanted to get Zack to be quiet if for no other reason, so he could take his nap.

The other toddlers then thought about it, and while Tommy was moving slowly and talking kind of like a zombie, he didn't have the other sneezing symptoms that those Loud kids had, proving that he was indeed, correct. Still though, they then recalled his comment of wanting a bottle, giving them all an idea.

"Well, I heard Tommy say he wanted a bottle, so maybe getting Zachary a bottle will help him go to sleep too!" Kimi cried.

"Yeah! And a new diapy too." Phil added.

"And a pillow and blankie." Lil added.

"Okay guys, I'm guessing you're gonna want my help here." Chuckie said with a reluctant sigh.

Everybody nodded their heads yes, pointing fingers at Chuckie, who let out a sigh, but he'd help if it finally meant peace and quiet.

"Oh why can't the growed ups just give Zack that red liquid stuff my daddy gives me when I've gots a headache." Chuckie said to himself.

"That's a great idea Chuckie, only, I don't know where the growed ups hided the red liquid stuff from us." Kimi replied.

Realizing they'd never find the red liquid, which unknown to them, the adults called Tylonol, they figured they'd better go for the diaper, blanket, pillow, and bottle approach. Luckily stashed by the front door were everybody's diaper bags. Knowing how tired Tommy was and how slow he was moving, they had him stay behind to watch over Zack, who was lying on the floor of the playpen at this point, while the rest of them, went in search for the supplies they'd need. Chuckie and Dil went upstairs where they grabbed a pillow and the blanket from Tommy's bed and brought them back downstairs, while Kimi, Phil and Lil all rummaged through the diaper bags left by the front door, to get the rest of the supplies they'd be needing.

While everybody was gone, Tommy stood there, staring down at Zack, who was still crying. He went around the playpen, as moving helped him stay awake, and picked up random toys, showing them to Zack, but nothing seemed to work. He dismissed every toy sent in his direction, continuing to cry.

" _Oh, this little boy just, doesn't understand._ " Zack thought to himself, growing really frustrated at this point.

Of course, the same was true for Tommy.

" _Zack's reminding me of Dilly._ " Tommy thought, as he stared down at Zack, thinking back to Dil's younger days, when he use to cry a lot more than he does now.

Sure, he'd still have his moments, but being more of a big baby now, being able to speak more words, he didn't cry nearly as much anymore. Though this didn't change the fact that Tommy had many days when Dil would cry, and he felt helpless, trying to get his baby-baby brother to calm down, with no avail. As he stood there, waiting for his friends and brother to return with the items they'd be needing to help get Zack to go to sleep, he had a flashback that took place sometime between their trip to Paris and their trip to the drainforest where they met Nigel Strawberry.

It was nap time, and Peter was over babysitting them, since this was before Taffy was hired and it was after grandpa had moved away to the tired center. Dil was crying nonstop, and nothing was getting him to take his nap. Of course, Tommy couldn't take his nap, and it was one of those days when it was just, him and Dil with Peter watching over them. He knew he had to do something. He headed into Dil's room, as at this time, they had separate rooms, and tip towed over to Dil's crib, which use to be his crib, and peaked inside the bars.

"Dilly? You okay?" Tommy asked, grabbing his brother's hand.

"Tommy! Tommy! Tommy nappy!" Dil cried between his sobs.

"What?" Tommy asked.

"Tommy nappy!" Dil repeated.

Tommy gasp in shock. It then hit him what Dil wanted. He wanted his older brother to take a nap with him.

"You want me to take a nap with you Dilly?" Tommy asked.

"Tommy nappy." Dil replied, still continuing to cry.

Tommy didn't like sleeping on the carpet, but he'd do anything for his brother, so he lay down on the floor next to Dil's crib, hoping that would do. Unfortunately, it did nothing. Then it hit him what his brother really wanted. The only problem was, while he could easily unlatch the crib with his screwdriver and join him, as there was plenty of room for the both of them, he didn't exactly have an easy way to get into the crib, and when he went to get Peter's help, he found he was busy on the phone, so decided he'd have to do this himself. He recalled this one time when his daddy had taped the crib shut, back when he thought he was a robot, thinking he was trying to hide his secret from them, but that time when he and Chuckie ran back to his bedroom out of fear over the strange walking daddy robot, not realizing he was only sleepwalking at the time, he had Chuckie, who was slightly bigger and taller than him, to help get them both safely back into the crib. This time though, he had nobody to help him, and Spike was outside, so even he couldn't help, as that would surely disrupt Peter's phone call if he tried to get Spike's attention to come inside, and he didn't wish to get in trouble with Peter, he only wanted to help Dil sleep.

" _Hmmm, what to use to get into the crib with Dilly._ " Tommy thought to himself, glancing around the bedroom.

Then, he saw it, the rocking chair. Going behind the rocking chair, pushing with all of his might, he started to push it towards the side of the crib. He then climbed on to the chair, and standing on the chair, he was just at the right height to unlatch the crib with his screwdriver, which he thankfully had stashed in his diaper where he usually kept it, and got it open. He climbed in, latched it shut, and curled up at the opposite end from Dil, similarly to where Chuckie would often sleep when he slept over with Tommy prior to Dil's birth, or where Phil and Lil would sleep across from him and Tommy when all four of them slept in that crib at their sleepovers. This sure brought back memories, as he hadn't been in it since before Dil was born, but while he had a flood of memories come back to him, now wasn't the time to be going down memory lane. Now was the time, to finally take his nap, as no sooner was he curled up in the crib opposite from Dil, when he noticed that the room had grown suddenly quiet.

Dil saw his brother curl up opposite of him, and he felt so much safer, no longer so alone. Feeling pleased, he closed his eyes and fell asleep, and shortly after, when Tommy noticed his little brother was asleep, he curled up at the opposite end of the crib and did the same. Later, when Peter came in to check on them, he was about to wake them up, but didn't have the heart to when he saw the two Pickles brothers sleeping so peacefully together at the opposite ends of the crib from one another.

" _Awe, that's so adorable!_ " Peter said, quietly snapping a picture with his phone of the sight that lay before him, before leaving the room to let them nap together for a little while longer.

Tommy came out of his flashback as everybody else returned with the supplies they'd be needing. Chuckie had the blanket from Tommy's bed draped over his shoulders, Dil was carrying Tommy's pillow, Phil had a diaper, Lil had some powder, and Kimi had a bottle of milk from Zack's diaper bag, which Tommy knew this since Zack liked that chocolate ovaltine stuff as he learned and grew to love post discovering it back when he had his first sleepover at Zack's place, amongst learning some other hard lessons, like the importance of going to bed at night.

"Okay we're back." Lil said.

"What do we do firstest?" Phil asked.

"Let's change his diapy." Kimi suggested.

"Good idea!" Phil and Lil cried in unison, as they got started.

Zack did feel wet, so while he was still unsure who these babies were, he calmed down a little, as they saw to changing his diaper.

"Now hold still Zachary." Lil said, pulling off the dirty diaper as Phil saw to applying the powder, and they both saw to applying the new diaper.

They even managed to fascin each side without arguing, much to everybody's surprise.

" _I still don't know who this, Zachary is, but the new diapy feels nice._ " Zack thought to himself, being glad he was in a new diaper, while Dil saw to taking the dirty diaper into the kitchen, where while he couldn't reach the garbage can, he saw to dropping it in Spike's empty dogfood bowl instead.

As he returned to the living room, he saw that Kimi had placed a pillow behind Zack's head, and Chuckie was tucking him beneath the blanket.

"Nighty night Zachary." Chuckie said, handing the bottle over to Tommy, who almost instinctively put it in his mouth, ready to have a bottle and finally take his nap, when Lil snapped him out of it, just in time.

"What are you doing Tommy?" Lil snapped loudly, as Zack had started wimpering again, but luckily, the pillow and blanket were helping him to mellow out a little bit.

Tommy gasp and threw the bottle down on the floor, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, sorry." Tommy said.

Kimi then picked up the bottle and started feeding Zack.

"Drink up Zachary, this milk will help you have sweet dreams." Kimi said.

As the luke warm chocolate milk slid down Zack's throat, he couldn't help but start to trust these babies. No, it wasn't nice and hot, but it tasted just like the milk he recalled his aunty giving him, and so, if these babies could do just as good a job at taking care of them as his aunt did, maybe he could trust them, even if he had no idea who they were.

No sooner did Zack finish the contents of the bottle, when he started crying again, wanting more, but the babies couldn't figure out what he wanted.

"Oh no now what are we gonna do?" Chuckie asked, feeling pretty frustrated at this point.

"I don't know." Dil replied.

"I've gots an idea." Tommy said, though with being so tired, his line wasn't as perky as it usually was, more or less, sounding pretty deadpan, one would have thought Lucy Loud was talking at that moment, but nobody seemed to really care or give it much thought.

They all knew he was pretty tired, so at this rate, they were about ready to try anything. At this point, Tommy knew it would be safe to finally lie down, so long as his plan worked. He lay down on the floor next to Zack, covered himself in part of the blanket, and let out a huge yawn. Luckily, Zack had turned his head and saw Tommy let out the huge yawn and close his eyes, and he in turn, did the same, as he let out a huge yawn and closed his eyes.

"Night night Dilly." Tommy muttered sleepily, as he saw to drifting off to sleep.

Phil glanced over at Tommy, looking confused.

"Uh, Tommy, that's not Dil." Phil said.

"I'm Dil Tommy." Dil said, but there was no further communication from Tommy, or tears from Zack, as the two babies had passed out at this point, falling asleep together.

Once they saw that Tommy and Zack were happily taking their naps together, side by side, and the others finally had some peace and quiet, being able to think again, they all quietly headed into the kitchen, to try to brainstorm what to do to help get Zack to recognize them again, and be the normally, talkative, brave, strong Zachary they all knew.

"Well, we got Zack to nap at least." Phil said.

"Yeah, and Tommy's getting a nap too." Lil added.

"So what do we do now Kimi?" Chuckie asked, turning to his sister, hoping she'd have a good idea, since she could be a lot like Tommy at points, and seeing that Tommy was good and passed out, he wasn't going to be much help at the moment.

"I don't know but I'd better think of something. I mean, it's all my falt Zack is like this." Kimi said, looking about ready to shed a tear.

"What do you mean Kimi?" Chuckie asked, his eyes raised behind his glasses in confusion.

"I mean, had I not ruined the surprise yesterday, Zack could have gone with us to the Reptar Store to pick out presents, instead of having to go to dayscare and get hurted." Kimi said.

"But if Zack had gone with us, how could you surprise him with the popcickles?" Phil asked.

Kimi gasp at Phil's comment.

"That's it! The popcickles!" Kimi cried, running over to the freezer, where she tried to reach up to the handle, but struggled to reach it, as it was a few inches too high out of her reach.

"We'll help ya." Phil and Lil said in unison, as they, along with Chuckie and Dil, all piled on top of one another on the floor, giving Kimi a chance to climb on top of them, being able to reach the handle, and pull the freezer door open.

Soon, she had the door open, and she saw where her mommy had placed the popcickles. Luckily, it was on a low enough shelf that she could reach them, so she pulled them out, and closed the freezer door when she was done. She then sat down with them on the floor, and proceeded to open the box, where she pulled out all of the popcickles. Of course, with them being individually wrapped in white paper, it was hard to tell which flavor was which, so all of the toddlers saw to opening up the popcickles. As soon as Kimi saw some blue inside one of the popcickle wrappers, she pulled the wrapper off to reveal the blueberry flavored blue popcickle in the shape of Reptar on its stick.

She got the wrapper off and laid it aside, making sure nobody touched it.

"Can I have the blueberry popcickle?" Phil asked.

"No! It's for Zachary! Not only is it my birpday present to him, but I bet ya as soon as he tastes the blueberries and sees it's Reptar, he'll have to stop crying and remember us." Kimi said.

"Are we gonna wake them up now?" Chuckie asked.

Before Kimi could answer, the adults came into the kitchen and headed for the hall closet where Kira had stashed Zack's presents. Worried they'd be caught, everybody had hidden beneath the kitchen table, each holding one of the popcickles from the package that they had unwrapped, as they had a snack, being unnoticed by the adults, while the blueberry popcickle remain on the kitchen floor in plain sight. Surprisingly though, none of the adults tripped on it, thanks to them walking around the kitchen in a different direction to head to the hall. At the same time however, Zack started to stir in the other room, while Tommy remained passed out. Not recognizing the baby who lay asleep next to him, and wanting to try to go find his aunt on his own, Zack sat up, and started toddling out of the playpen towards the kitchen, in hopes that she was finally there now. Just as he reached the kitchen, the doorbell rang, which while Stu, Didi, and Kira were in the entry hall, trying to decide who would wrap which present, they went to answer the door to find that Chas, Betty, and Celeste had all shown up, but ultimately, this also startled Zack, who slipped on the blueberry popcickle that was lying on the floor and was more or less, melting as a result of being out of the freezer for too long.

He fell, hitting his head really hard and startling the other toddlers from their hiding place.

"Oh no! Zachary's present! It's ruined! And Zachary!" Kimi cried, bursting into tears, as she ran over to find broken pieces of blue popcickle everywhere on the floor, and hardly any left on the stick, as she knelt down next to a passed out Zack.

She sat there and cried for a minute, just as Zack opened his eyes, regaining consciousness once again. At that moment, he noticed he was no longer at daycare, but rather, in Tommy and Dil's kitchen, but he didn't have time to figure out how he got there, as he overheard the sound of Kimi crying, realizing that he needed to go see if his friend was okay.

"Kimi! Are you all right?" Zack asked, running over to the sobbing Japanese girl, who embraced him in a tight hug.

"Oh Zachary, your present is ruined, I'm so terribly sorry, I shouldn't have left it on the floor like that." Kimi cried.

"Kimi, it's okay. I'm just, glad you're okay." Zack said.

Kimi then gasp and sat back on her knees, staring at Zack with a shocked expression on her face.

"Zachary! You remembered me!" Kimi cried excitedly.

"Of course I remember you, you're my friend." Zack said.

Then a realization hit Kimi.

"Well, I guess I can't be too upset. My present to you might have gotted ruined, but ultimately, it saved your life." Kimi said.

Zack now gasp in surprise, as he stared at Kimi for a minute, a bit confused.

"Well, uh, thanks, for saving my life, but I don't quite understand what you mean." Zack said.

"You didn't member nothing." Phil said, crawling out from under the table.

"Yeah! You were just like a baby-baby, like, like, Dil." Lil said.

Dil, now sitting by one of the chairs, rolled his eyes at Lil, his face red with embarrassment.

"We're just glad you're all right." Chuckie said, crawling out from beneath the table, as everybody in the room went up to Zack and gave him a group hug.

"I don't understand how I got from dayscare, where the lastest thing I knew, this big kid named Logan was about to hit me with a pile of rocks, all the way to Tommy's kitchen, where I apparently slipped on a blueberry popcickle, but uh, thank you." Zack said, letting his friends all give him a hug.

Of course, since the other toddlers weren't at daycare with him to witness everything going down, they felt it best to keep quiet, as it was obvious that Zack didn't remember anything that had gone on while he was out of it, and they were okay with that.

At this point, Tommy was starting to stir in the other room, feeling much less tired and more refreshed, but he grew very worried when he saw that Zack was no longer asleep next to him.

"Oh no! Zachary!" Tommy called, getting up and running quickly into the kitchen, where he saw all of his friends and little brother, group hugging Zack.

"Zachary? Are you okay?" Tommy asked.

"I'm fine Tommy." Zack replied, breaking out of his circle of the other friends, running over to give Tommy a hug.

"Zack! You remembered me!" Tommy cried.

"And you're not a zombie no more. That's a relief, I didn't need you to get the Flu and miss Zack's birpday." Chuckie cried, coming up and hugging his best friend.

"Oh that's right! Today's my birpday! My firstest birpday!" Zack cried, giving Tommy and Chuckie another hug, just as the adults entered the kitchen.

"Oh Zachary, thank goodness you're all right." Celeste said, overhearing the babbles of her nephew, rushing over in his direction and scooping him up, giving him a hug.

Zack smiled and giggled, staring up at his aunt and returning the hug, wrapping his tiny arms around her shoulders.

No sooner had this little reunion taken place though, when Celeste's cell phone started to ring.

"Better get that sweetie, hold on." Celeste said, placing her nephew down on the floor and reaching into her pocket where she pulled out her phone and answered it.

"Hello?" Peter said from the other line.

"Peter! You can talk again!" Celeste cried excitedly.

"Yes, I can." Peter replied.

With the phone being on speaker, all of the adults heard him, which caused Didi to grow curious.

"So, Peter, how are you feeling after having your cavity drilled? We saw you this morning, but you were having trouble talking." Didi said.

"Well, it's a long story, but I never had any cavities in the first place. As you know, as king of the Confederacy, I must seek medical personelle to attend to my people. It's become apparent as of late that Richmond has been undergoing a shortage of dentists, and while I know a lot of things, my knowledge of medical stuff where who's the best doctors and dentists to hire isn't exactly in my nature. So I went to your dentist office this morning to speak with their head manager there, Rudy, and apparently, just like what happened that one time with Angelica, when she thought her leg had broken and that Hogy Doozer or whatever that doctor's name was now mistaked her x-rays with that Mister Peaches broken leg x-rays, well I was mistaken for another Peter who was going in to meet with Rudy this morning to have a filling done. Before I could say anything though, he had numbed my mouth, and quickly released me when he saw after numbing me that I had no cavities to speak of. Of course, I still had to let the numbing ware off, which is why when you guys came out of Doctor Homer's office, you saw me in the state I was in, and he had given me so much of it, that it took a while to ware off, which is why I wasn't sure if I'd be able to play Super Why at Zack's party, because I not only needed to let this stuff ware off, but I knew I was going to be on the phone this afternoon, launching some rather loud complaints to the dentist office of Yucaipa, California, making sure that they didn't send any of their personelle to the Confederacy, especially after overhearing that not only was Doctor Homer fired this morning, but I'm looking into getting Rudy fired too, just as I saw to doing with Doctor Hogy Doozer sometime post Angelica getting the cast removed from her leg, as I do not take kindly to having patients being mistaken for other patients, especially if one of the mistaken ones, is yours truly." Peter explained.

"So, did you get everything straightened out?" Betty asked.

"Well, let's just say Rudy is appearing in court next Monday morning, and that's where we'll leave it at that. Anyway, I'm all set to come to Zack's party now." Peter said, just as the sky opened up outside, and rain started pouring down, hard.

"Oh no!" All of the adults exclaimed, staring out the kitchen window to see that the sky had darkened since they came inside with black storm clouds, and sure enough, it had opened up, and not only was it pouring down rain, and Spike and Spiffi were taking shelter in their dog house, but the balloons and other decorations were being blown away.

"What are we gonna do Deed?" Stu asked in a panic.

"I don't know." Didi replied.

"And to think, this was suppose to be my nephew's first birthday, and on top of his accident at daycare and my having to be at work at the radio station nearly all day, and now this, well I guess you can say his birthday is officially ruined now. Oh I'm a terrible aunt." Celeste said, crying into Kira's shoulder.

"Now now Celeste, I'm sure we'll think of something." Kira said, trying to calm the poor woman in distress down.

Just then, Betty got a brilliant idea.

"Hey wait a minute. Isn't the Reptar exhibit still going on at the children's museum an hour away?" Betty asked.

"Oh that's right! The Reptar exhibit at the children's museum. We've been meaning to take Chuckie and Kimi, but time has more or less, gotten away from us." Chas said.

"I've been meaning to take the pups too but again, Howie and I have been busy ourselves." Betty added.

"Same for me, and Zack loves Reptar. Oh I'm so glad his party has been saved!" Celeste cried.

"And isn't Taffy performing there tonight with her band? Hince, your main reasoning behind needing me to dress up for Zack's party and supply entertainment?" Peter said over the phone.

"Yes! Yes it is! Oh Peter, are you busy?" Celeste asked.

"Not to worry Celeste, I'll grab my costume and meet you all at the museum. It's going to be a Reptar and Super Why party, Zack and everyone else, will never forget." Peter said, disconnecting the call, as everybody else ran around in a hurry, seeing to getting the kids ready to go, as Kira went quickly and saw to wrapping the presents, while Stu cleaned up the mess of popcickles in the kitchen, and before everybody knew it, they were in Celeste's driverless van, which had enough room to seat everybody comfortably.

Of course, not wanting to spoil anything, as at a point while the adults were talking with Peter, the toddlers had all snuck off to the living room to play, they didn't hear the entire conversation, so everybody was just as confused as ever, as they were quickly put into the car seats and headed on this big adventure.

"Where are we going?" Phil asked.

"I don't know Phil, but if it's gots anything to do with my firstest birpday, then I bet it will be good." Zack said.

"I hope so." Chuckie added, as the van sped down the turnpike in the direction towards the exit that would lead them to the children's museum where the Reptar exhibit and Zack's birthday party, would soon be taking place.

And this, ends chapter 5. So, how will Zack's birthday party go? And despite the popcickles being ruined, will Kimi still have a special surprise for Zack? And if so, what will it be? Find out, in what will be, the next and final chapter of this story!

Author's Note: Well, I do hope everybody enjoyed this chapter. Not sure if you noticed, but I thought outside the box a little bit, in terms of the whole, misinterpreting what was being said mistaking it for being an idea. Usually, it's a case of Tommy mistaking what Chuckie actually said, as we have seen in several Rugrats episodes, the one this is most noticeable in by my standards anyway being, Grandpa's Bad Bug from season 5, where Chuckie is relieved the bug is out of their reach, prompting Tommy to go up to his grandfather's room to get the bug out of him. I decided to put the shoe on the other foot this time, and seeing that Tommy was exhausted, he'd make some comment about wanting to take a nap, prompting Chuckie to claim he had a good idea of getting Zack to nap, as it would most likely help him to feel better, and if nothing else, give the toddlers some peace and quiet to think, and figure out how to get Zack back to his old self again. And the part with Peter and the cavity, being mistaken for the wrong patient, as you can see, I was inspired by the Rugrats episode, Angelica Breaks a Leg, as Peter even made a mention of the events of that episode, but this was brought up based upon a review or PM or something I received a while back when releasing earlier chapters of this story, claiming that Peter has never had a cavity, but I had no desire to go edit chapter 2, so found a clever way to find a work around, in terms of why he might have not only gone to the dentist, to seek possible suggestions of people to hire as dentists in his Confederacy kingdom to end a shortage of such personelle, but also why he was numbed for cavity fillings as a result of his visit. Anyway, I do hope this chapter turned out okay, and I hope to have the last and final chapter of this story up, either later on tonight, or for sure, by tomorrow at the earliest.


	6. The Birthday Party

Author's Note: Before we begin, I just wanted to wish everybody a Happy Friday the Thirteenth, since at the time I'm posting this chapter, it is indeed, Friday, January 13, 2017. Not sure if we'll have any other Friday the thirteenths this year, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Also, another great piece of news. I not only got me several movies on DVD this week from Amazon with money I got for Christmas from one of my uncles, including the first Live action film to be released by Nickelodeon Movies back in 1996, Harriet the Spy, but I am also now the proud owner, of all five seasons of All Grown Up, the Rugrats spinoff series, and the more successful one out of the two spinoff series to exist, those being, All Grown Up and Pre-School Daze, well I now have all five seasons of All Grown Up, on DVD! So I now own everything possible of Rugrats there is to own on DVD at this point, since I have all nine seasons of the original show Rugrats, all three theatrical films, those being, The Rugrats Movie, Rugrats in Paris, and Rugrats go Wild, along with the two Tales from the Crib specials, Snow White, and Three Jacks and a Beanstalk, which feature the four episodes of Pre-School Daze as bonus material, and now, to complete my set, I have all five seasons of All Grown Up, making my Rugrats DVD collection, complete! Not to mention I have one of the original DVD's released from All Grown Up, the direct to DVD release of Dude, Where's my Horse, and the Rugrats, Decade in Diapers collection, which has the top ten episodes of Rugrats ever, as well as the six minute pilot, Tommy Pickles and the Great White Thing as a bonus on the disc, yeah, in that case, I pretty much, have everything Rugrats there is to own on DVD now, and for that, I am a very proud Rugrats fan at this very moment! Of course, I've rambled and stalled long enough, you guys are eagerly awaiting to read the last and final chapter of this here Rugrats fan fic story, which had this been an actual episode, it would have taken place during season 10, had a season 10 existed, and in my mind, not sure if this would have been a direct to DVD release, or aired on TV, but it would be for sure, an hour long special episode. Now, let's move on, to the conclusion of this story! And oh yes, the OC's of Kai and Kya, who make a brief appearance in this chapter, belong to Vinzgirl.

Chapter 6, The Birthday Party

As the sky continued to pour down rain and Celeste's driverless van continued to speed down the turnpike in the direction of the children's museum, five exhausted toddlers who missed their nap time, those being Dil, Phil, Lil, Kimi, and Chuckie, all took this opportunity, to catch some shut eye on the long drive. Tommy on-the-other-hand, was squirming around in his car seat, while he was satisfied to have finally gotten some rest, thanks to his nap he took earlier, he was now pretty hungry, and all of the diaper bags were way out of his reach, and at the moment, he had no treats stored in his diaper or the pockets of the shorts he had been dressed in after his bath earlier. He figured Phil and Lil might have something, and he'd even take something from his brother, but they were all napping, and he didn't wish to wake any of them up. Luckily, Zack was to his immediate right in the car seat next to him, and he was still wide awake too, seeing that they both had taken a nap together earlier, even if he had no memory of taking a nap, because he had Amnesia at the time, nobody really cared at that moment. Luckily, Zack was somewhat bored too, so he looked in Tommy's direction, and noticed by how he was moving around and by the expression on his face, something was troubling him.

"Something wrong Tommy?" Zack asked.

"Nothing's wrong, I'm just, really hungry is all." Tommy replied.

"Well, I'm sure my aunty packed some snacks in my diapy bag, only, it's a bit too far out of my reach. Maybe we should cry to get the growed ups attentions since they're sitting further up towards the front of the van." Zack suggested.

"I'd be all for that, except, I don't wanna wake up Dilly or our friends from their nappy, since you and I gotted our nappy earlier." Tommy replied.

"Hmmm." Zack said, putting a finger up to his lips and thinking really hard, as he then remembered.

He then reached into his diaper, and pulled out the half eaten prune gluton free cookie that he had received at daycare earlier that day. While he didn't like it too much, he hoped that Tommy would like it, and it would at least satisfy his hunger for the moment, until they got to the museum, where he hoped everybody would get some kind of snack at such time.

"Oh, here, have this." Zack said, handing Tommy the cookie.

"Thanks Zack." Tommy said, taking a bite out of the cookie.

After a minute though, he spit it out immediately, just as Zack had done earlier, not being impressed.

"Yuck! I haven't had a cookie this bad since I went to dayscare a long time ago." Tommy commented, placing what remained of the cookie in his pocket, thinking maybe he'd give it to Spike or Spiffi later.

Zack stared wide eyed at Tommy when a realization hit him, thinking back to earlier that day.

"So, you are the legendary Tommy Pickles then." Zack commented.

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Tommy asked, his eyebrows raised in confusion.

"Well, I learndid while I was there today that you snuck out of the place by climbing on a tall pile of blocks, and attempted to open the door with a key made out of Clay-Doh." Zack said.

"Yeah I did. How did you know that?" Tommy asked.

"This kid named Wise Guy told me. He knows everything that goes on there, and I saw the kid who's a master at making things out of Clay-Doh as well too. We didn't get to talk much, cuz well, I kept admiring this girl called Bookworm who loved to read. Someday, before I reach my nextest birpday, I hope to be just as good at reading books as she is. And then there was Logan. Not sure if you knew him, but he's worser than Angelica." Zack explained.

"Hmmm, I don't member anybody named Logan. I vaguely member a Justin though." Tommy commented.

"Yeah, I think he might be Justin's cousin or something. Anyway, I was banished to this room where three tiny baby-babies were, and they were a lot of work. I'm surprised I made it out of there alive. Luckily one of the growed ups rescued me, but that wasn't the worst of it. After that, I was in so much trouble with Logan, that he proceeded to trap me in some pin, hitting me hard in the back of the head with a pile of rocks, and the nextest thing I knew, I was waking up on your kitchen floor. I surely hope where we're going is a lot more funnerer than my day's been so far, cuz while my firstest birpday so far has been full of surprises, it hasn't exactly been a lot of fun." Zack said.

"Don't worry Zack, I'm sure it's gonna get a lot better now." Tommy said with a smile.

"I hope so. So, how did that, whole, you know, tooth fairy thing with Dil go today?" Zack asked.

Tommy's smile faded, as he looked down at his lap away from Zack and then turned his gaze back towards him, smiling slightly.

"Uh, I'd rather not talk about it, all you gotta know is, he's gone forever." Tommy said.

"Well that's good." Zack replied, as the car was getting closer to the exit to turn off to head into the Reptar museum.

Up front, the adults were talking and or looking at their phones every so often. Celeste even noticed she had a couple of texts she forgot to check out earlier.

"Well I see two other kids won't be joining us. I see a text here from Lucy Carmichael stating that Susie is sick with a bad stomach virus, and so they couldn't join us at the museum, and well, you all know how I feel about Angelica and her parents, I didn't invite them to begin with." Celeste said.

"I think Drew and Charlotte were taking her to Cynthia Land this weekend anyway as I recall speaking with Drew yesterday." Didi said.

"I heard he was going to go visit an old college friend named Fred, but I could care less. For once, a weekend where I don't have to listen to my older brother gripe and complain about my inventions." Stu muttered.

"Well, glad to know everybody we invited other than Susie and Jesse, who's home with the Chicken Pox were able to come, even Peter will be there, as I also saw that the Reptar exhibit wasn't going to be at the museum for too much longer, so glad we're going today." Celeste said.

"Yep, Mother Nature has a way of making things work out." Betty commented, as the driverless van turned off on the exit for the museum.

"I agree! And look! We're getting close!" Kira cried, as the driverless van saw to heading through the town towards the museum, Peter's limo wasn't too far behind them at this point.

Another ten minutes later, after having to sit through a bit of some rush hour traffic, as it was growing towards that time in the afternoon, they finally made it through the rush and turned into the parking lot. Once they had a parking space, they got out of the van and saw to waking up the other toddlers, getting everybody into their strollers, just as Peter climbed out of his limo and caught up to the group.

"Hi everyone." Peter happily greeted.

"Hi Peter, so glad you could make it." Celeste said, as she strapped Zack into his stroller and gave him some Teddy Grahams to eat.

The other parents saw to putting their kids into their strollers, also giving them Teddy Grahams to eat, which Tommy was very greatful for at this point, since at this point, he was about ready to eat anything. Heck, he would have even taken a worm and mud from Phil's diapers at this rate he was so hungry.

In fact, he was the first to finish his bag of crackers as the adults saw to pushing the strollers through the parking lot into the museum, Peter, Stu, and Chas bringing up the rear of the line, as Stu made some small talk with Peter about helping him to get changed into his costume for later on after they arrived. Soon, everybody was inside the huge lobby of the museum, where they went up to a desk and saw to purchasing tickets for both, the Reptar exhibit and Taffy's concert.

"We're so glad you all came today, as today is the last day we'll be having the Reptar exhibit open to the public. Tomorrow, it will be closing as we see to opening up a new exhibit based off of ocean life." The lady behind the counter said, as she saw to giving all of the adults their passes, and little white paper bracelets with Reptar's picture on them to put on each toddler's arm, which equaled their ticket to the museum, so if they got separated from their folks, provided they didn't remove the bracelet, they could be found and returned to their families more easily.

Once all of the parents had the Reptar paper bracelets on their kid's wrists, they looked for the signs leading towards the exhibit, while Stu and Peter excused themselves to go find a bathroom.

"Reptar!" All of the toddlers ccried, as they saw pictures of him on signs as they got closer to the exhibit.

No sooner were they outside the door to the exhibit, when Kimi and Zack grew really excited. Next to the door was this really neat box with four different windows in it, as it looked almost like a playhouse minus an actual door to go inside. Curious, before the adults could stop them, all of the toddlers undid the belts on their strollers and jumped out, eager to go check this item out. Turns out it was a little house with four windows in it, and when you opened each window, the head of a different Reptar character popped out. In one window, there was Reptar, another had Dectar, another had Robosnails, and another one had one of the aliens from the movie, Reptar versus the Aliens.

Dil was having fun playing Peek-a-boo with the alien window, while Zack and Kimi were having fun with the other three windows, and the rest of the gang was eager to head inside the next room.

"Come on kids we're not even to the real exhibit yet." Betty said, grabbing up Phil and Lil and taking them into the next room.

Kira turned to Chas.

"You know, I think Kimi thinks this is part of the exhibit." Kira said.

"Well I think I'm gonna go on ahead and take Chuckie into the exhibit. We'll meet you and Kimi in there in a few." Chas said, grabbing Chuckie's hand and taking him inside.

"Okay." Kira called, as she and Celeste stayed with Kimi and Zack until they were finished with looking at the windows.

By this time, Dil had grown bored and had tottled back over to Tommy and Didi, and at that point, they all headed into the exhibit. Celeste and Kira let Zack and Kimi play with the character windows for a few more minutes, and Kira even got a really cute picture of them playing with this on her phone, before they saw to taking them inside the exhibit. Zack was a little upset about having to leave the windows, but calmed down quickly, when they walked through a large green door into another room, which was full of happy children playing, and had pictures of Reptar everywhere.

He turned to Kimi and smiled.

"So far, this place is neat!" Zack cried.

"Yeah!" Kimi replied, as they ran off to catch up to their friends and Kimi's older brother.

Once everybody had caught up with one another, the toddlers went all around the place and checked out everything the exhibit had to offer. There were an abundance of activities and structures for the small toddlers to play with. They could sit at a table and trace Reptar and other characters on a piece of paper and color them in, as well as climb into this replica of a spaceship that looked just like the one seen at the beginning of Reptar 2010, and hear quotes from the movie inside over speakers, as well as just, run around the spaceship replica and play. There was also a Whack a Mole People game, which was basically the classic, Whack a Mole game seen at some arcades and amusement parks, only the moles were made to look just like the mole people from the Reptar movie, Reptar versus the Mole People. Phil and Lil had a lot of fun playing with that, while Tommy and Chucckie had fun playing in the spaceship, and Kimi had fun making pictures of Reptar and other characters with the stencils laid out on one of the tables, and Dil had fun playing with everything, as did Zack, as they even found this telephone that you could pick up and hear different dinosaur sounds, including Reptar's signature roaring sound, so it was like Reptar was talking to them on the phone. Of course, while everybody was having the time of their lives, little did they know it was about to get interesting, when Tommy at a point while playing in the spaceship, ran into two very familiar faces. The philipino twins he had met at the park nearly a month ago at this point. Yep, it sure was them, as there was the little boy, wearing a gblue shirt with a shark on it, along with his twin sister, dressed in a purple shirt with Elsa from Frozen on the front. It also was proof that it was them, when they looked a bit frightened upon recognizing Tommy as he came closer to play with one of the imaginary controls that was set up to let them pretend to steer the spaceship, that was directly behind where the twins were standing.

"Oh no Kya, it's that kid we metted at the park who was put under some curse when he picked up some magic marble out of the secret cave!" Kai screamed in panic to his sister.

Kya simply shrugged her shoulders, smiled at her brother, glancing over at Tommy and then at Kai.

"No worries Kai, my ice powers will make that little boy leave us alone." Kya said, reaching her fingers out, trying to make ice appear, with no luck.

"I hate to break it to you Frozen obsessed Freak, but, you're not Elsa!" Kai screamed in his sister's ear, making her jump a mile backwards, startled.

"You guys, I wasn't cursed! I was just, sick and tired." Tommy commented.

Kai walked up to Tommy.

"I know, I'm sick and tired of Kya's obsession with Frozen. Uh, I forget your real name. Timmy?" Kai asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh, close, it's Tommy, and no, I wasn't sick and tired of your sister's love of Frozen, I was just, sick and tired, but I'm all better now, and we're here to celebrate our friend Zack's firstest birpday." Tommy said.

"Wow neat! Me and Kya are here with our aunt today. She brought us since it was too rainy for the park, and she heardid it was the lastest day we could come to the exhibit." Kai said.

"Oh." Tommy said, just as the rest of the gang had found him at this point.

They all went around and reintroduced themselves to one another, as while they had all briefly met Kai and Kya a month ago at the park, they hadn't seen one another since. No matter, it was a nice reunion, and once Kya was reassured that the whole marble incident from a month ago was nothing, she came out and played with the other kids, as they went around and checked out everything at the exhibit, once they had enough of playing inside the spaceship. At a point though, while they were quietly sitting at a table, coloring in some pictures of Reptar that Kimi had helped trace on to pieces of paper for each of them, a child's voice startled them out of their thoughts, as they looked up to see before them, a very tall looking version of Wyatt from the Super Why TV series.

In actuality, it was Peter dressed up in costume, but only the Rugrats and Peter knew of this to a degree. Not to spoil anything, they pretended to not know anything, as Peter spoke up, which, while normally, he had a much deeper voice, seeing that being forteen, he had matured quite early, no longer sounding like a kid because puberty had set in, tucked inside the shirt close to his mouth, was Stu's mojulator five-thousand, the same device Angelica used to order treats a while back, but it was set to make Peter's voice sound higher, making him sound somewhat more so like Wyatt from Super Why, even if it wasn't exactly, at this point in time, Zack was the only one who had watched Super Why on occasion on TV and Netflix, so most kids had no idea that it wasn't the actual Wyat before them. The only reason why Stu was able to get Peter's voice to fit the tonality was he stole Celeste away at a point while the kids were playing, to have her listen to Peter while he made some adjustments to his invention off in a nearby vacated area near the restrooms, before they went back, saw to getting everything ready, and now, Peter was ready to give them their party game of the early evening, before it would be time for Taffy's concert. Also, while he wasn't too familiar with Super Why, he had seen one or two episodes with Zack while babysitting him by themselves on occasion, making him familiar enough with his character to play him for the evening.

"Hello super readers, hope you're all enjoying the Reptar exhibit. Listen, I'm Wyatt, and I came all the way here to the Reptar museum from Story Book Village, because I have a super big problem. Yes, not sure if you all know Taffy, but I know a few super readers here who know her quite well. Raise your hand if you know Taffy." Peter as Wyatt said to the toddlers.

Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, Kimi, Dil, and Zack all raised a hand, as everybody had finished coloring their pictures at this point to listen to Peter as Wyatt.

"Good! Now, she's suppose to be giving a concert here tonight, but she recently, hit her head, and can't remember what she needs to help her give her concert. Hidden around the Reptar exhibit, are five super letters. Think you can find them for me?" Peter as Wyatt asked the group of toddlers.

All of the toddlers, including Kai and Kya, who had never heard of this, Super Why person, shook their heads and agreed to help.

"Great! You'll have until the big and small hand are both pointing down at that clock on the wall to find the super letters, which are red paper letters hidden around the area." Peter as Wyatt said, pointing to a clock on the wall that currently said it was six o'clock, with the little hand down at the six, and the big hand up on the twelve.

Of course, Taffy had been contacted by Peter in his limo on his way to the museum, filled in on his plans, being filled in on the game so come concert time, she wasn't oblivious as to what was all going on, since originally, she wasn't expecting to see the minis or their families today.

"Okay, ready, and, search!" Peter as Wyatt said, as everybody got up from the table where they were coloring pictures of Reptar, and crawled around the entire exhibit, looking for the super letters.

Several green paper letters were hidden, tricking the toddlers a little bit, but luckily, Tommy and Zack were quite the adventurous types, as was Kimi, so they knew to look under and behind things, hoping to find those five red letters. While most of the toddlers there didn't know their letters, they knew to look for red pieces of paper in funny shapes, which was enough to help them play the game, as the only letter the Rugrats knew besides Zack who knew all of his letters at this point, even if he wasn't good at actually reading actual words yet, everybody else knew what the letter A looked like, after having to help Tommy's mommy get one at college a while back before Kimi's birthday and before they met the Thornberrys. Unfortunately, A wasn't one of the super letters, but they were determined to help Taffy, because they all enjoyed her concerts.

"Here's one!" Tommy cried, pulling out a red letter from behind a shelf.

"I founded another one." Lil said, grabbing one from inside the spaceship replica.

Phil kept finding green letters, but had no luck at finding red letters at this point. Meanwhile, Chuckie was trying to play another game of Whack a Mole Person, when one of the red letters bounced off one of the mole people that popped up, and flew out, landing in his hair.

"AAAHHH!" Chuckie cried, grabbing the red letter out of his hair.

Overhearing Chuckie's screams, Tommy went over to see what was going on.

"You did it Chuckie, you founded a stuper letter!" Tommy cried.

Chuckie stared down at the red funny shaped piece of paper in his hand, then back up at Tommy.

"Yeah, I guess I did." Chuckie said with a smile, as he like the other toddlers when they found letters, stashed it away in his pocket.

So far, three of the five letters had been found. The last two letters, Kimi found one of them beneath a chair where one of the adults was sitting to watch over to the side, while Zack found the last letter hidden inside the mouth of a giant Reptar skeleton, that was shaped like Reptar, only the bones were painted bright green to match the color of his skin, that was set up so people could feel what a t rex's bones felt like, but with them being made out of plastic and painted green, making everybody think it was Reptar, it was more so appealing to the toddlers at the exhibit, plus, they weren't as easy for them to get broken either, not being an actual skeleton made out of real bones, like so many exhibits of dinosaurs were at other museums, and at a section of this children's museum geared for older children.

In fact, Zack found his super letter just in time, as sure enough, right at that moment, the big hand and the small hand were now pointing down at the six on the giant clock on the wall, at which point, Peter as Wyatt blew into a whistle to get everybody's attention, signaling that time was up.

"Time's up kids. So, did we find all of the super letters? Everybody who picked up red letters, pull them out so you can show me, and I'll come around and collect your letters." Peter as Wyatt said.

Tommy, Chuckie, Lil, Kimi, and Zack all held up their letters. Phil of course held up his collection of green letters.

"Those aren't stuper letters Phillip." Lil argued.

"Yes they are, Lillian." Phil argued.

"No they're not, Phillip." Lil argued back.

"Yes they are, Lillian." Phil argued back, just as they were interrupted from their arguing by Peter coming up and taking the red letters away from Chuckie, Lil, Kimi, Tommy, and Zack, and stashing them away in one of his pockets.

"Great job everyone!" Peter as Wyatt said, as the toddlers with green letters, either threw them down on the floor, or put them back in their pockets, disappointed that they weren't super letters.

"Well we should see about diaper changes and getting everybody over to where Taffy's concert is." Didi said.

"That's correct. Everybody, to help me put the letters into my super duper computer and help Taffy solve the secret super story book answer, we all need to go to the auditorium of the museum." Peter as Wyatt said.

And so, all of the parents and Kai and Kya's aunt, who decided to let her niece and nephew stay to hear the concert, all grabbed up their kids, took them down to the bathroom where everybody had their diapers changed, and Chuckie went and used the potty, and after that, they all headed down to the auditorium where they took seats close to the stage, where up on stage was a huge projector made to look like the computer screen on the show. It had a blue background with five white dashes where each red super letter would be placed on a tray to project up on to the screen. By around seven that evening, the auditorium was filled up, where Peter as Wyatt at such time, came out on stage to have help finishing up the game, before he'd introduce Taffy and the Saltwaters, who would come out and perform at such time.

"Okay kids, let's put our letters into our super duper, computer!" Peter as Wyatt said, pulling the red paper letters out of his pocket, and lying them down on the little tray that projected them on to the screen, where everybody saw the red letters against the blue background.

"Help me spell the word. Let's see. M-U-S-I-C! Music!" Peter as Wyatt cried.

"Music!" All of the toddlers cried, though out of the adults and older people in that room, only Peter could understand most of them, to most of the adults, it all came out as baby babble, but nobody really cared at that point.

"And why is it music?" Peter as Wyatt asked.

"Because Taffy plays music!" Zack replied.

Of course, while Peter understood his answer, nobody else did, so he decided to translate.

"Yep, because Taffy plays music. And so, without further a due, give it up for, Taffy and the Saltwaters!" Peter as Wyatt said, as everybody clapped and cheered, the projector was moved out of the way and shut off, and Taffy and her band made it out on stage.

"Good evening everybody!" Taffy called into a microphone, as she stood up on stage, her guitar in her hand.

"Taffy!" All of the Rugrats toddlers and Zack cried in the audience, upon seeing her face, similarly to how they all cried out to Reptar earlier.

"Thank you for coming this evening. Well, I'd like to thank King Peter Albany of the Confederacy for helping to make this evening special, as tonight, we have somebody in the audience, who is celebrating his first birthday. A good friend of mine, Zachary." Taffy said, as Peter went down, still dressed up as Wyatt, grabbed up Zack, and took him back up on stage.

He was pretty surprised to have Wyatt bringing him up on stage to join Taffy and her band. Peter then handed Zack over to Taffy, who luckily had her guitar strapped around her neck, so she wouldn't drop it, and at such time, she gave him a hug and a kiss. Everybody cheered, as Zack smiled.

"Happy birthday Zachary." Taffy said.

Peter as Wyatt took Zack back down to his seat, and at such time, Taffy's concert began, as the band sang and played Happy Birthday, followed by several other numbers. All of the toddlers and their families, enjoyed the concert intently, and after it was over, they were all invited to another room in the museum, reserved for an after party of refreshments for Taffy and her band, but due to the change of plans, the birthday boy and his party of friends and family were all invited back there as well, though at this point, Kai and Kya's aunt was ready to leave, so they bid everyone farewell, and headed on their way, unsure when they'd see the toddlers next, but it was a lovely little reunion while it lasted.

Back at the refreshments room, there was lots of stuff to eat, including a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, which became Zack's birthday cake, because his was ruined out in the rain at Stu and Didi's, crackers with cheese and peperoni slices on top, pieces of chopped up fruit, and juice to drink. Everybody enjoyed their snacks, which at this time of night, was going to more or less, become dinner, with how late it was getting to be, as it was after eight in the evening at this point, getting close to bedtime for most of the toddlers attending, but just the same, it was a lovely little party, as all of the adults and Zack's aunt returned with his presents for him to open.

He opened all of his presents, which, he got several Reptar things, including the items that everybody had picked out at the Reptar store earlier, like the three dimintional magnetic figures of Reptar, Dectar, and Robosnails that you could take apart and rearrange around to create your own character, the blocks with Reptar's picture on them, and from Tommy and Dil, he received the choo-choo train and Reptar figures to go along with it, more or less, ripping off Dinosaur Train, but nobody could care if the Reptar corperation at this point, was on the verge of getting in trouble for a copyright infringement, Zack was just, happy to have the toy. Of course, Kimi had something more special to give Zack, but she knew of when the perfect moment was to give it to him, assuming she didn't fall asleep in the car on the way home, like she did on the way to the museum.

So far, it was turning out to be a terrific birthday for Zack, and he couldn't be any happier than he was at that very moment. After all of his presents were opened, and the adults helped Taffy and her band clean up and get packed up to leave, everybody saw to taking what remained of the food home to have as leftovers later, though there wasn't much left, just a few slices of cake and some leftover cheese and pepperoni, which Celeste decided to take home for Zack, so he could have another piece of birthday cake the next day if he wanted, and they all saw to piling into her driverless van, while Peter changed out of his costume, gave Stu back his voice changing mojulator five-thousand invention, and saw to getting into his limo.

"Thanks for letting me borrow your invention Stu to use with my costume Stu." Peter said, as he climbed into his limo to head back to his castle.

"No problem Peter, thanks for showing up here on such short notice." Stu said, pocketing his invention, and rushing off to Celeste's van to catch up with the others, as they had everybody go for one last final potty and diaper change run before getting into the van to head home.

They had also brought everybody's pajamas, and changed them into their jammies to head home, more or less, having them all ready for bed, so should they fall asleep in the car on the way back, it would be easy to get them out and go put them in bed when they got back. Once everybody was situated in the van, Celeste started it up, put in the coordinates to get everybody back to Stu and Didi's house, since that's where everybody was parked, and soon, they were headed down the turnpike towards home, and by this time, while it didn't matter much, since the van drove itself, they were all happy that the rain had stopped at sometime while they were inside the museum, so nobody would have to ride back, soaking wet from the rain.

On the drive back, all of the toddlers turned to one another.

"Wow you guys that was fun! I liked the rocket ship." Chuckie said.

"Me too Chuckie." Tommy said.

"I liked everything, and having Wyatt from Super Why show up at my relocated birpday party? Now that, was the bestest!" Zack cried.

"Yeah! It was also nice to see those two kids, Kai and Kya again." Kimi said.

"I liked the alium window we sawed when we gotted there." Dil said.

"Yeah those windows were fun." Zack said.

"Well I liked whacking mole people." Phil said.

"Me too!" Lil added.

A few minutes later, sure enough, all of the toddlers had drifted off to sleep, all except for Kimi and Zack at this point, who thankfully, for the trip back, they were sitting next to each other this time around. Realizing that they were more or less, alone, as even some of the adults had fallen asleep at this point, except for Celeste, and Kira, who road up front with her, mainly because she would often get motion sickness if she road in back, making the van seem super quiet, more or less, making Kimi feel like she was alone with Zack at that very moment. She realized if she was going to give him her special present, now was the time to do so.

"Zachary?" Kimi said, getting his attention.

"Yes Kimi?" Zack said, turning towards her.

"I've gots something to tell you." Kimi said.

"Yes?" Zack asked.

"Well, I hope you don't mind, but, I wanted to tell you that, well, I consider you to be, well, more than a friend." Kimi said.

"What do you mean, more than a friend? Like, I don't understand." Zack said.

"Well, you know how Tommy and my brother Chuckie are bestest friends?" Kimi asked.

"Yeah? What about that?" Zack asked.

"Well, not sure if you know this, but Chuckie wasn't always my brother. There was a time when I didn't know the gang, until we all metted in Paris. Long story short, my mommy married his daddy and we became a family. And while everybody is great friends with me, and Chuckie is the bestest and onliest brother I ever had, while I've enjoyed all of our aventures together, even before you and I metted on my brother's third birpday, I've always felt like something was missing, that is, until you came along." Kimi said.

"Missing? What did you feel was missing Kimi?" Zack asked.

"Well, sometimes, I've, felt like a extra wheel. I mean, Phil and Lil gots each other, Tommy and Chuckie gots each other, and up until recently, well, Dil wasn't always a lot of fun to play with, cuz he's so much littlerer than the rest of us." Kimi said.

"So you're saying, I've helped make you feel not quite so lonely then?" Zack asked.

"Yes, and since sadly, the Reptar popcickle I tried to give you for your birpday gotted broked when saving your life, well, I wanna give you something even betterer. Yes Zack, I don't just, consider you a friend, I also consider you, my bestest friend. Yes, for your firstest birpday, I wanna officially make us, bestest best friends, just like Tommy and my big brother are." Kimi said.

Zack didn't know what to say at first. Sure he would have liked eating that popcickle, as when he saw what remained of it on the floor, it was most likely blueberry flavored, which was his favorite, getting a bestest best friend was probably the best present anybody could ever give him, plus, not only would this present hopefully last a lifetime, while the popcickle would have probably only lasted five minutes at most had he gotten to eat it, but he was so pleased that she saw him just as much so as a friend, as he saw her.

"Wow! I don't know what to say Kimi, this is by far, the bestest birpday present I gotted all night! I mean, I've liked you ever since we first metted, but I wasn't sure if you saw me as a friend too, but now that I know that you wanna be best friends, well, I wanna be best friends too." Zack said with a smile, gazing into Kimi's eyes.

She smiled and gazed right back at Zack, as they held hands and shook on it, making their best friendship status official. Then, while they couldn't give each other more than half hugs, being strapped in their car seats at that moment, they half snuggled up with one another.

"Thank you Kimi, my bestest best friend." Zack whispered.

"You're welcome Zachary, my bestest best friend." Kimi whispered back, as they fell asleep together, until the van returned to Stu and Didi's driveway.

At that point, Betty had to use the jaws of life to tear Zack and Kimi apart, much to Kimi's disappointment, as she awoke and started crying, sad she had to leave Zack.

"Now now sweetie, you'll see Zack another day." Kira said, picking up her daughter and trying to calm her down, as Zack opened one eye, smiled, waved goodbye, and went back to sleep in his car seat.

Soon, everybody was out of Celeste's van, all either heading inside in Tommy, Dil, Stu and Didi's case, over to the next yard where Betty, Phil and Lil were concerned, as they went inside to find Howard had gotten home from work and went bowling with his male bonding group for the evening since he couldn't leave early that day to go with everybody to the museum, and Chas and Kira saw to loading Chuckie and Kimi into their car, as they saw to driving back to their house. Celeste then saw to getting her and Zack home, where she took him inside, getting him tucked into bed before she went back out and saw to bringing in the leftover food and his birthday presents, figuring they'd open them up for him to play with the next day, as it was nearly ten at night by the time they finally got home, and she was pretty exhausted at this point herself.

Zack on-the-other-hand, lay awake in his Reptar racecar bed for a few minutes, reflecting back on the day he had. Sure, it might have not started out all that well, and a chunk of his birthday was a bit of a mystery to him because he'd never understand how he got from daycare to Tommy and Dil's kitchen like he did, but after that, he had the best first birthday any baby could ever have. He went to the Reptar exhibit at the museum, he got to play a fun Super Why game and meet Wyatt in person, he saw Kai and Kya again, which nobody was expecting, that was by pure cooinsidence, he heard Taffy perform and she even sang him Happy Birthday and gave him a hug and a kiss on stage, he had yummy cake and treats with his friends, and got a boat load of great new toys to play with. Though in Zack's eyes, the best thing to happen to him that day, was getting his first best friend ever, Kimi, probably a gift that very few babies get for their first birthday, but at that moment, he planned to cherish his friendship with Kimi forever and ever, and hoped that it would last, a lifetime. And with those final peaceful thoughts, he snuggled up with his white teddy bear Frosty, and for the final time on his birthday, he closed his eyes, and drifted off to sleep, eager for the many days that lay ahead, with more playtime with his new best friend, and great adventures with his aunty and all of his friends, as he'd see to living his second year of life.

The End

Author's Note: Well that's it. I do hope everybody enjoyed this story, even if it took me a long time to finally get it finished. So now, you not only know where Zack got the interest to want to learn how to read, which we see him doing in my Rugrats and Bobby's World crossover, A Library Lesson Learned, which takes place a few months after his birthday, but we also learn of when he and Kimi declared becoming best friends with one another, again, this started on his first birthday as well. Also, did you notice my reference to my story, Bedtime Banishment, in chapter 12 of that story when Kai and Kya met Tommy who felt pretty tired and miserable that day, and he passed out upon finding Zack's lucky marble, making those twins think he was cursed? Now you see why Bedtime Banishment needed to be finished before I released this story, as otherwise, part of this chapter would have made no sense. And yes, the Reptar exhibit they went to see at the museum was a parody of the Curious George exhibit my nephew went to see back in 2015, which also had several of those items, like telephones, pictures you could color, a spaceship replica only that one was the ship used by Professor Wiseman and her crew on the TV series I believe, and the thing the toddlers were playing with before going into the Reptar exhibit with the characters inside little windows you could open and close, was a parody of something similar at the exhibit my nephew attended, outside the exhibit was something similar, only it was four different doors, each with a different Curious George character behind each door in that case. It was Zack's favorite thing at that exhibit, and he could have stood there and played with that thing all day, just as Dil, Kimi, and Zack could have played with the windows and heads of the various Reptar characters that poked out upon opening them at the exhibit they visited in the story here. Anyway, with that said, I do hope to release more chapters in other ongoing stories, and release more new material, sometime soon, and as always, thanks to everybody who added this story to their favorites, read, and reviewed this story, it's great friends, fans, and supporters like you, that help keep me motivated to release great material to the Rugrats fandom here on Fan Fiction, whenever I possibly can!


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